Image: Maria Huhmarniemi, Alien Hiker, 2010. Digital photograph.
Series of photos titled Alien Hiker (2010–2021) by lecturer Maria Huhmarniemi are shown in the exhibition "Counter Cartographies: Living the Land” in the Anchorage Museum.
Huhmarniemi created the artwork during the years 2010–2021. The first part was photographed in the Alps, Austria, and the second part in Alaska. The artwork visually examines the dialogue between symbols related to cultural identity and mountain landscape.
– My artwork raises a question: to whom does the landscape belong to, and who has the right to hike? explains Huhmarniemi, University Lecturer of Art Education in the University of Lapland.
"Counter Cartographies: Living the Land” -exhibition presents contemporary artworks that examine our relationship to land, proposing alternative ways of thinking about and experiencing the landscape around us. Artists draw attention to the way culture, identity, emotion, ancestry, displacement, power and colonization shape and inform our understanding of land.
The Anchorage Museum is a large art, history, ethnography, ecology and science museum located in Anchorage, Alaska, on the traditional homeland of the Eklutna Dena’ina. It is dedicated to studying and exploring the land, peoples, art and history of Alaska and recognizing and honoring the Dena’ina people.
Counter Cartographies: Living the Land exhibition