The More You Look

This week , we interrupt UAMN Ornithology Collection Manager, Jack Withrow, as he installs a small exhibit on the Birds of Beringia. This is the latest edition of Changing Alaska, Changing Collections, a temporary exhibit case near the entrance of the  main gallery that highlights recent work from the museum’s collections.

The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples.

Today we visit two conversations with UAMN Fine Arts Collection Manager Della Hall, both recorded in the last year -- Della’s first year in this position. We talk about the collection, about storage space and how books should be organized on a shelf, about the life of objects, about exhibits and how all museums have art – all of them – bar none. We talk about how art is made to be engaged with – and responded to – this week on the podcast.

The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples.

Today, we catch up with Elisabeth Padilla, Education and Public Programs Outreach Specialist and School Tours Coordinator as she prepares the museum’s Creativity Lab for the latest Friday morning installment of the Early Explorers program.

The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples.

It’s easy to forget, with how much we think we know about the world, that new species of animals are being discovered and studied, all of the time. Sometimes, the animal lives where few people are present to observe it. Other times, we just haven’t yet looked close enough. And other times, once in a while, an animal might exhibit an uncommon behavior, perhaps something we can’t fail to notice, and we pay attention, and lo and behold, the animal is new to science. In this episode, Derek Sikes, UAMN curator of insects talks about one such new species, Sciara serpens and its astounding behavior, first brought to his attention by museum docent Maggie Billington.

The research paper can be found here.

The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples.

Today, Jonah Wright, exhibits Chief Preparator and Roger Topp, Director of Exhibits take a moment to talk about exhibition rotation during this period of often orderly, and often chaotic, rapid change in the museum special exhibits gallery.

The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples.

Planning. Safety. Back-up planning. This episode continues our conversation on museum fieldwork, where host Roger Topp sat down with a half-dozen of the museum’s curators to talk about getting out of the lab and into the world, into adventure, if that’s the right word. How do we plan and how do we learn when things don’t go according to plan? Fieldwork can be hard, and if it’s not hard, are we doing it right?

The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples.

In this Up-Close episode of the podcast, Angela Linn, Senior Collections Manager for Ethnology and History introduces us to the always-unique process of considering and accepting a new donation of objects.

The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples.

As of late November 2023, UAMN has more than two dozen university graduate and undergraduate students working with and within the museum collections. That’s two dozen not including all the students that work for the exhibits, operations, visitor services, and education departments. This week, we highlight a discussion with Maggie Harings, master's student in fisheries, and Andres Lopez, museum Curator of Fishes and UAF Associate Professor at the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. They sat with Roger Topp, Director of Exhibits, Design, and Digital Media to talk about Maggie’s research into Chinook Salmon environmental DNA.

Salmon eDNA Project Website
https://sites.google.com/alaska.edu/salmon-edna-yukon-river-basin/home

The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples.

In this special spotlight episode, exhibits staff Tamara Martz, Jonah Wright, and exhibits student Cindy Hickman install a new display of archaeology objects at the entrance to the museum’s Gallery of Alaska.

The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples.

As an official repository for the State of Alaska, the UA Museum of the North took possession of the Stampede Trail Bus, or Bus 142 in fall of 2020. In 2022 the museum contracted with the team at B.R. Howard Conservators to assess and conserve Bus 142. That conservation was begun and completed in spring of 2023 within the UAF Engineering Department’s high bay. During the work, the museum spoke with members of the B.R. Howard team about the complicated process of balancing the preservation of existing bus elements while repairing and restoring lost components—in aid of both the safety of future visitors to the bus and the long-term care of the bus and associated collections. 

The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples.