Recently on SAPIENS: Indigenous artist Crystal Kaakeeyáa Worl’s new public mural honoring Tlingit activist Elizabeth Peratrovich places Alaska Native peoples’ resistance to colonialism at the center of Juneau’s history.
“This is time for me to stand up and make artwork … that will tell people—tell our nation—that I’m an Indigenous woman, I’m here, I exist,” says Crystal Worl.
As she worked on the project, Worl spoke with Peratrovich’s descendants over the phone. She also talked with individuals involved in the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaskan Native Sisterhood who reached out. These conversations helped Worl better understand Peratrovich’s legacy and also connected her, she says, “with people I already knew, and with people I haven’t met yet in the community.
During a public talk about the pole in 2017, Worl’s grandmother Rosita Worl, a Tlingit anthropologist who leads