The Anchorage Museum is launching a unique program they're calling their "Northern Inititiative". The effort will use art to spark conversation about how to leverage the distinctiveness of place and position Anchorage as a pivotal city in the Circumpolar North.

ArtPlace spoke with Julie Decker, Chief Curator, about the project:

ARTPLACE: What is your elevator pitch when you describe your project to people?

DECKER: The Northern Initiative puts the arts at the center of looking at the “Next North,” in terms of research, technology, climate and other discussions of global impact. By bringing artists and scholars from other disciplines to Anchorage and working with local leaders in a variety of disciplines, we hope to connect Anchorage to global issues, trends and institutions in a way that revitalizes communities and initiates collaborations that move from the local to the Circumpolar North to the world.

ARTPLACE: How do you expect to increase vibrancy in the place you are working?

DECKER: Anchorage is a key Northern city. We want Anchorage to be the site for discussions and actions that convene, inspire and influence. The Anchorage Museum will use art as catalyst to make Anchorage a vibrant city, launching a Northern Initiative that will be a series of public artistic productions, exhibitions, performances, symposia, and research through the arts. By creating distinct, new interdisciplinary explorations of the north for local, regional, and international audiences, we will engage diversified, nontraditional art audiences in considerations of the uniqueness of northern culture, with Anchorage as a pivotal city in the Circumpolar North, one that begins to be considered as one of the notable northern cities, in parallel with Vancouver, Helsinki, Reykjavik and other vibrant places that come to mind when one considers contemporary, urban, and northern.