SPEAKER 1: When we think about, "What is the value of a work of art?"
We often think about it in terms of being part of our family, being part of our culture, and so it feels sometimes like you're connecting with an ancestor when you're holding something in your hands that was made a long time ago.
Cama'i, my name is Nadia Jackinsky Sethi SPEAKER 2: Drin , shrè' Shyanne Beatty Eagle hùhch'in.
I'm Shyanne Beatty.
SPEAKER 1: And I am an Alutiiq/Sugpiaq art historian from Kachemak Bay part of Alaska, which is in the south, in the bottom of... the bottom of Cook Inlet.
SPEAKER 2: I'm from Eagle, Alaska.
I'm Han Gwich'in Athabaskan from there, and I am Tr'ondek Hwech'in Athabaskan from Moosehide, Yukon territory in Canada.
SPEAKER 1: I'm really pleased to be here today to be able to be a cultural adviser for the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW and to be able to share about Alaska Native arts and my perspectives on them.
SPEAKER 2: It's wonderful that ANTIQUES ROADSHOW finally came to Anchorage.
I'm a huge fan of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, I've been watching ANTIQUES ROADSHOW for years.
We're excited that you also had consultants and people like me who are Alaska Native to be a part of this.
And... and just even today talking to various people that have come through bringing items I say "objects" because we're at the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW but they're not that, they're more than that.
They're our family and they're part of who we are and they tell our stories.
SPEAKER 1: When we're working with museum collections, uh, it's often the case that a museum will call something an artifact or an object.
We would consider something that is in a collection to be a material belonging or something that belongs to our communities, and I think that distinction is really important.
SPEAKER 2: We just would like to see people bring our objects home.
SPEAKER 1: Today, people are recognizing that when you return something to a community of its origin it can have an incredible value for our community members and sometimes those materials that go home can be used to re-educate the next generation in the techniques of making.
Weavers can study the design patterns, they can be... they can be they can be saved and protected for future generations to have access.
And really, that's just an incredible way for our communities to be able to maintain our cultural arts traditions far into the future.
SPEAKER 2: If there's something ceremonial that shouldn't... that should not be in a private collection we just encourage you to reach out to these different institutions.
SPEAKER 1: In some cases, it's absolutely fine that people own Native American or Alaska Native artwork, um... and it's it's a beautiful thing if you do because it means that you appreciate, uh, our our communities and our cultures and so that's wonderful.
But in other cases, if a material has significant cultural value and if that material is no longer found within our communities, sometimes the right thing to do is to return it.
SPEAKER 2: There's a lot of historical trauma that comes with revitalizing your language and your culture.
That historical trauma still hasn't even carried on into my generation but we've been pushing through that a lot and we've really been really excited to learn about our history and we want to tell our stories.
It's our art, it's our music, it's our language, it's our traditions, it's bringing back our subsistence.
And it's also learning about, you know, our environment, traditional, medicinal plants and our indigenous place names.
It's not just an object it's... a whole... it's a whole heartbeat.
And the love for who we are as people, and it's important for us to be the ones to tell our own stories.