ALASKA YUKON PACIFIC: INDIGENOUS VOICES REPLY
One hundred years after the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, this exhibit examined the representation of indigenous peoples at the fair, explained how the fair shaped the history of the Burke Museum, and provided a forum for indigenous voices to reply, challenging us all to consider how we have changed and/or stayed the same after 100 years.
After the fair, the George T. Emmons collection of Tlingit objects that had been exhibited in the Alaska building was purchased for the young Washington State Museum (now the Burke Museum). This collection, combined with the collections assembled for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 (the James G. Swan and Myron Eells collections) and the earlier collections of the Young Naturalist Society, are the founding ethnology collections of the Burke Museum.
The exhibit featured some of the objects that were exhibited at the fair along with historical photographs and contemporary work and comments by indigenous people responding to cultural representation at the A-Y-P.
Launch a video featuring artists from the exhibit
Alaska Yukon Pacific: Indigenous Voices Reply exhibit Web site
Below are online resources and links that provide further information on the content of the 1909 A-Y-P Exposition and events that took place in 2009:
- AYP Exposition Community (4Culture, HistoryLink): http://www.aype.org
- Chinese in North America Research Committee, Symposium on Asian-Pacific Peoples at the AYP: http://www.cinarc.org/AYPE.html
