Rural Alaska blog: The Village : 'Virtual Subsistence'

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The Village is a Daily News blog about life and politics in rural Alaska. Its main author is ADN reporter Kyle Hopkins. Come here for breaking news on village issues, plus interviews, videos and photos. But that's just part of the story. We want to feature your pictures, videos and stories, too. Think of The Village as your bulletin board. E-mail us anything you’d like to share with the rest of Alaska -- your letters to the editor, the photos of your latest hunt or video of your latest potlatch. (We love video.)

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Kyle Hopkins

I was born in Sitka, have lived in Kake, Skagway and Fairbanks and joined the ADN in 2005 after writing for the Anchorage Press and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. I started blogging for the paper in 2006 with The Trail, our blog about the governor's race. Then came the Alaska Politics blog. Now I'm covering government and rural affairs and live in Anchorage with my wife, Rebecca. (Update: Our daughter Alice was born May 31. Thanks everyone for the suggestions.) E-mail me at khopkins@adn.com and find me on Twitter at twitter.com/ADNVillage.

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Rural blog: The Village

'Virtual Subsistence'

Posted by thevillage

Posted: October 18, 2009 - 9:17 pm

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Bill Roth / Anchorage Daily News
"Urbanite Subsistence: In-between" by artist Perry Eaton

What’s subsistence, or living off the land, mean in modern Alaska?

A group of Alaska Native artists are tackling that question from all angles at an art show that opened at the MTS Gallery in Mountain View Friday, and is timed to coincide this week with the state's largest gathering of indigenous people.

I stopped by the gallery today, where curator Gretchen Sagan described the theme:

Listen to the interview

...

Artist Priscilla Hensley Holthouse wore a dress made from plastic shopping bags rather than animal hide to show's opening Friday. It's now on display at the gallery:

Bill Roth / Anchorage Daily News

Listen to Sagan describe the work

Grocery-bag bustle. Shot this with my phone. Priscilla Hensley Holthouse's father, Willie Hensley, and her sister Elizabeth Hensley, are keynote speakers at the AFN convention.

With nearly 40 artists, there's no single note or message to the work. The show ranges from a poem about wasted caribou to photos of a woman in full regalia sipping a Starbucks coffee and reading "Robert's Rules of Order" at Fred Meyer.

Sagan, one of the three curators, is also an artist. This is her contribution to the show:

Bill Roth / Anchorage Daily News

Listen to Sagan describe the work

Check out the show, Virtual Subsistence, noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays at the MTS Gallery at 3142 Mountain View Drive. It runs through Nov. 14.

There's plenty more about the show at www.virtualsubsistence.com. For example, read some of the work by the literary artists here.

The curators are Sagan, Joan Kane and Allison Warden, who is organizing the First Friday performance Nov. 6. (Look for a special performance that night, Sagan said.)

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