ASM Exhibitions & Events
APK 10th Anniversary Community Building Tours
Monday-Friday, August 3-7, 2026
9-10 am each day
Tours are free, with space for up to 10 participants each day. Youth under the age of 18 need to be accompanied by an adult. Sign up for a tour!
Dorothy Grant Retrospect: Raven Comes Full Circle
Celebrating 40 years of Haida Haute Couture
May 1–October 17, 2026
This exhibit showcases Dorothy Grant’s 40-year career in haute couture, from traditional regalia to contemporary fashion and her critical role in bringing Indigenous fashion to the world stage.
Skil Da ‘Yuuwans Dorothy Grant (born Hydaburg, Alaska) belongs to the Yahgw Janáas clan of the Haida Nation. An internationally renowned fashion designer, she is celebrated for her unique design and critical role in bringing Indigenous fashion to the world stage. Grant’s artistic journey began with ceremonial works in the early 1980s, when she began making button robes and learned spruce root weaving from master Haida weaver Florence Edenshaw Davidson. In the mid-1980s, rising to a challenge by celebrated Haida artist Bill Reid, Grant set her sights on bridging the world of Haida art and regalia with that of western fashion and haute couture. Pursuing a formal fashion education at the Helen Lefeaux School of Fashion Design, she debuted her first label, Feastwear, in 1989 with a fashion show in Vancouver that featured 55 pieces, garnering great excitement. This event marked the beginning of Dorothy Grant’s multi-decade career in fashion.
Grant's work has since graced countless international runways and prestigious art and fashion exhibitions. Her garments, imbued with the Haida philosophy of yahguudang (respect for the land and those living upon it), are worn by people from all experiences in a variety of settings, from Potlatches to the Oscars. Her creations are also part of global museum and gallery collections, including the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, with Grant’s Shark Button Robe currently showing at the MET in New York.
Throughout her career, Grant has received numerous accolades, including the Order of Canada in 2015 for her contributions to Canada's fashion industry as an artist, designer, and mentor, and an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University. She continues to be celebrated for her lasting legacy in art, fashion, and business, and for her role in opening the door for future Indigenous fashion designers.
Additional programming to be announced at a later date.
Image: Dorothy Grant models a Raven Creation Tunic, FEASTWEAR, 1986/1990. Farah Nosh photo.
What Does Independence Mean to You?
Through 2026
Alaska State Museum
The Spirit of Independence: Kent Bicentennial Portfolio, part of the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial celebration, features work from 12 artists who were asked to create pieces that answered one question: "What does independence mean to you?"
Artists in the portfolio include Alex Katz, Audrey Flack, Colleen Browning, Edward Ruscha, Fritz Scholder, Jacob Lawrence, Joseph Hirsch, Larry Rivers, Marisol Escobar, Red Grooms, Robert Indiana and Will Barnet.
As we near the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence, another look at this portfolio from 1976 invites us to re-engage with the central questions and founding ideology of American democracy. Works in the exhibition ask us to reflect on social issues of the 1970s that, in many ways, continue to challenge us fifty years later. What does freedom look like? Who is it for? Who has it? Who doesn’t? How does it function in your daily life?
Image: Jacob Lawrence, The ‘20’s…..The Migrants Cast Their Ballots, mid 20th century, serigraph on paper, ASM 76-23-8