Exhibits and Events

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• Boreal Forest Stories May 2nd through Oct 11th, 2025

  • Start
    Fri, May 02, 2025
  • End
    Sat, October 11, 2025
  • Location
    Alaska State Museum

  

  IN A TIME OF CHANGE:

  BOREAL FOREST STORIES

  Exhibit Opening
  Friday, May 2, 4:30–7:00 pm

  Lecture
  Friday, May 2, 7:00 pm
  APK Lecture Hall, Alaska State Museum

  The Alaska State Museum is pleased to announce the opening of In a Time of Change: Boreal Forest Stories. Forming an emerald ring around the circumpolar North, the boreal forest is the world’s largest land-based biome. Also known as taiga, it accounts for approximately one third of Earth’s total forest area and covers the majority of Interior Alaska.

  Boreal Forest Stories is a cross-disciplinary, collaborative project examining change in the boreal forest through narrative. For over a year and a half, 44 creators, including artists, writers, environmental educators, and humanities scholars, exchanged knowledge and perspectives on the boreal forest with scientists and explored narrative as it applies across the disciplines. Through their original works, participants relate stories rooted in the boreal forest, including its ecology, its inhabitants, and their interactions. In a Time of Change (ITOC) recognizes that collaborations between the arts, humanities, and sciences can foster community engagement and build capacity for cross-disciplinary collaboration, helping society to address complex environmental problems. ITOC is directed by Mary Beth Leigh. Artists Margo Klass, Ree Nancarrow, and Susan Campbell curated the visual art exhibit and artist Jennifer Moss contributed graphic and web design. ITOC: Boreal Forest Stories was made possible with funding from the National Science Foundation through the Bonanza Creek Long Term Ecological Research Program with additional support from the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology, the Rasmuson Foundation through the Harper Arts Touring Fund – administered by the Alaska State Council on the Arts, and other sponsors.            Boreal Forest Stories will be on exhibit through October 11, 2025.

  
  

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• Free Friday Concerts in August & September noon to 1pm

  • Start
    Fri, August 29, 2025
  • End
    Sat, October 04, 2025
  • Location
    Alaska State Office Building

  
  credit:ASL P53-02
  
  Kimball Theatre Organ concerts are held  on the eighth floor of the State Office Building, and continue through April  with the help of organists J Allan MacKinnon and Laurie Clough on Fridays at 12:00pm  Bring your lunch and enjoy the diversity of music these organists select.

  Aug 29 -  TJ Duffy
  Sept  5 Laurie Clough
  Sept 12 T J Duffy
  Sept 19  Allan MacKinnon
  Sept 26 T J Duffy

  Though housed in the state office building, the organ is the property of the Alaska State Museum. You can help support this amazing piece of Alaska's history. Donate today.

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• First Friday

  • When
    Fri, September 05, 2025
  •  
    4:30 PM - 7:00 PM
  • Location
    Alaska State Museum

  The Alaska State Museum is open with FREE admission
  Friday, September 5th from 4:00 to 7:00 pm
  
  The Human Imagination Beneath the Boreal Forest
  a talk with Corinna Cook at 7:00 pm in the APK Lecture Hall

  

  The boreal forest forms the world’s largest land biome, accounting for one third of all forest on Earth, and stretching across the majority of Interior Alaska. For more than a year and a half, 44 artists studied it alongside scientists, examining how the forest’s ecology and inhabitants have interacted and changed over time. Their work, including an essay by Corinna, is featured in the exhibition In a Time of Change (ITOC): Boreal Forest Stories.

  Many historical narratives center war and famine. But this framing tends to omit another human legacy, one that involves rhythms of cooperative labor, song, and rest. In Corinna’s talk, Alaska-Yukon archaeology will offer a window into some of our ancient and more collaborative human inheritances. Corinna will draw on rock and soil to look at disaster, migration, and kindness. She will speak about her role in the exhibition and ask human questions with a geologic sense of time.

  Corinna’s essay, “A Triangle of Sun,” which appears in the exhibition, collages fragments of her own writing with notebook excerpts from eleven other ITOC participants. The essay is nested inside a sculptural work by book artist Oralee Nudson, who dried out a core sample of frozen peat to create a book cover representing compressed time.

  Corinna Cook is the author of Leavetakings (2020) and Permafrost Is an Archive (coming out in 2026). She is a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship awardee, a former Fulbright Fellow, an Alaska Literary Award recipient, and a Rasmuson Foundation grantee. Her current project explores the early years of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission. Corinna serves as nonfiction faculty in Alaska Pacific University’s low-res MFA program in creative writing. More at corinnacook.com.

  ITOC: Boreal Forest Stories was made possible with funding from the National Science Foundation through the Bonanza Creek Long Term Ecological Research Program with additional support from the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology, the Rasmuson Foundation through the Harper Arts Touring Fund – administered by the Alaska State Council on the Arts, and other sponsors.   

  
  

  The boreal forest forms the world’s largest land biome, accounting for one third of all forest on Earth and stretching across the majority of Interior Alaska 

  
  

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• Sketching in the Museum

  • Start
    Sat, September 20, 2025
  •  
    2:00 PM
  • End
    Mon, April 20, 2026
  •  
    4:00 PM
  • Location
    Alaska State Museeum

  

  Starting September 20th, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm
  and continuing on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of every month until April

  Join us for sketching in the gallery! Bring your own sketching materials. Graphite, colored pencils, pen, pastels, watercolor, and gouache are all ok. For ages 15+. All are welcome. Donations accepted, free for FOSLAM members. We’re planning to meet the first and third Saturday of the month at 2 pm, through April (except state holidays).

  Questions? Call 907-465-2901.

  Sponsored by Friends of the Alaska State Library, Archives & Museum

  
  

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