Conversations: Queer Inuit Art

Alice Qannik Glenn is an Iñupiaq born and raised in Utqiaġvik, Alaska. She hosts and produces her own podcast show called Coffee&Quaq to celebrate and explore contemporary Native life in urban Alaska. Her episodes play on KRFF 89.1 FM Voice of Denali, KONR-LP Out North Radio, and KRBD 105.3 FM, and KTOO, and her work has been featured in Alaska Magazine, Anchorage Daily News, AK Humanities FORUM Magazine, CBC Unreserved Radio, and more. She currently serves on the board of Alaska Native Media Group and is one-third of Native Time, a collaborative media platform that highlights the real Alaskan experience through multi-media productions. In 2021, she was nominated by the Pulitzer Center for the Robert F. Kennedy journalism award in radio for the special Coffee&Quaq series AK Natives on the Front Line which highlights the adaptability and resilience of Iñupiat in the face of climate change.

Her past experiences include working as a Momentum Program Fellow at Rasmuson Foundation, an Environmental Specialist with UMIAQ Environmental, and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation Federal externship program at the Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers. She received her bachelor's degree in aerospace studies from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2014. Alice enjoys diversifying her career path and is passionate about providing accurate and authentic Alaska Native representation in media.

www.coffeeandquaq.com

Photo courtesy of: Alice Qannik Glenn © Alice Qannik Glenn

Source: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska Contributor: Dawn Biddison

Jenny Irene Miller, Iñupiaq, is originally from Nome, Alaska. Jenny employs photography, video, and sound in her art practice. She has also been exploring the mediums of sculpture and textiles. Her practice is grounded in storytelling and her identity, from Indigeneity to queerness, as well as familial and community relations. Jenny is informed and inspired by kinship. 

Jenny is currently a Master of Fine Arts Photography student at the University of New Mexico. She is a SITE Scholar through SITE Santa Fe and a recent Elizabeth Furber Fellow. Jenny received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photomedia and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in American Indian Studies from the University of Washington.

Jenny is a recipient of grants from the Alaska Humanities Forum in 2016, National Geographic in 2013, Fulbright Canada in 2013, and Fulbright Canada Killam Fellowship to Canada in 2012. Her work has exhibited nationally and internationally. Jenny's work has been published in Canadian Art Magazine, National Geographic, New York Times Lens Blog, FORUM Magazine, and more. 

https://www.jennyirenemiller.com/

Photo by: Jenny Irene Miller © Jenny Irene Miller

Source: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska

Contributor: Dawn Biddison

Ossie Michelin is an award-winning Inuk journalist, photographer, and filmmaker from the community of North West River. He was worked as a journalist for over ten years reporting on Indigenous news from coast to coast to coast. Ossie works in a variety of media including television news, radio, podcasts, magazines, and online. His work appears in APTN National News, CBC Indigenous, The Guardian, Canadian Geographic, Canadian Art Magazine, and many other places. Working with Canadian Art Magazine as Editor-at-Large, he recently helped to create the magazine's first-ever all-Indigenous digital issue around the theme of Sovereignty. He has also written and directed a podcast series called Telling Our Twisted Histories launching on the CBC in June and will premiere his first short documentary with the National Filmboard this fall called Evans Drum.

www.osmich.ca / Twitter: @osmich / Instagram: @osmich

Photo courtesy of: Ossie Michelin © Ossie Michelin

Source: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska

Contributor: Dawn Biddison