I’m very happy to share that after a nearly 3 year hiatus I spent last week back in Quinhagak, Alaska working in the culture center on our new project! Last year Charlotta (University of Aberdeen) and I were awarded an AHRC follow-on-funding grant to develop a new ‘digital museum and catalogue’ for the Nunalleq collection. The aim is to work closely with the local community in Quinhagak to co-curate an online exhibition about the collection which connects the archaeological material with contemporary Yup’ik life today.
We got off to a bit of a slow start for obvious pandemic-related reasons, but still managed to connect with some of our core team in Quinhagak (Lonny Strunk, Jacki Cleveland and Dora Strunk) over Zoom calls to begin sharing ideas and designing some concept art. Our design centres around an interactive panoramic map of the area around modern day Quinhagak, including the Nunalleq site, but this is no ordinary map! As users interact with the resource the map will progress through the different seasons, connecting seasonal activities to place and locations in the landscape.
Clicking on seasonal ‘hotspots’ on the map will open theme pages (like the one below) which show interpretive scenes depicting activities practiced by the people who lived at Nunalleq, informed by what the archaeology and local knowledge tells us. The interpretive panel on the right will be filled with interpretive animations, media and insights which incorporate written and spoken elements of the Yup’ik language (yugtun) – thanks to Lonny’s genius skills in both yugtun and coding!
As part of the project, this summer/fall we will also run 3 community workshops in Quinhagak on different themes related to Nunalleq: Subsistence, Identity and Yuraq (dance). I will post more about these workshops as the planning starts to come together…but some fun things are on the horizon!
The resource we are making has two core components: the ‘digital exhibition’ and the ‘catalogue’, which is searchable and will contain photographs and 3D models of a sizeable percentage of the full collection.
So last week in Quinhagak had a few key aims. Firstly, to meet with members of Qanirtuuq and QHI to discuss the concept material, and secondly to 3D scan as many of the artefacts as we could manage in a week (206 as it turns out – pretty good going if I don’t say so myself!). Of course, a large part of the trip was also spent catching up with friends and colleagues in person after such a long time away, which was so lovely!
Working remotely back in Scotland I collaborated closely with Jacki (a fantastic photographer + filmmaker who will also be documenting the workshops this summer). She curated some of her photos into seasons for me to begin developing the look and feel of the landscapes we were designing for the resource. Quinhagak is home for Jacki so working from her images and seeing the landscape through her eyes was invaluable.
Of course, being able to visit in person again meant I could do some sketches in the landscape myself as well, and Quinhagak certainly delivered. In the space of 8 days we saw the tundra change from the browns and yellows of spring to the first greens of summer – we even had a snow day!
We will be back later in the summer to run the workshops and will be updating the project Facebook page as we go, so give us a follow!
Above: A few more sketches from the trip – looking out from Dora’s house to the mountains, and across the tundra to IV mountain.
Digital Dirt Virtual Pasts 