Melissa Shaginoff

Melissa Shaginoff, is part of the Udzisyu (caribou) and Cui Ui Ticutta (fish-eater) clans from Nay’dini’aa Na Kayax (Chickaloon Village, Alaska). She is an Ahtna and Paiute person, an artist, a social activist, and currently the curator of Alaska Pacific University’s Art Galleries. Her work is shaped by the structure and processes of the Dene ceremony, potlatch. Melissa has participated in the Island Mountain Arts Toni Onley Artist Project in Wells, British Columbia as well as the Sheldon Jackson Museum Artist Residency in Sitka, Alaska. She has been published in the Alaska Humanities FORUM Magazine, First American Art Magazine, Inuit Art Quarterly, and the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Learning Lab. Her artwork is collected by the Institute of American Indian Arts, the Palmer Museum and the Pratt Museum. Melissa is also a part of Łuk’ae Tse’ Tsass (fish head soup) a new media group focusing on the collaboration and representation of Indigenous experiences in science-fiction. Later this year Melissa will participate in two international residencies. One in Canada with Jenni House of the Yukon ArtsCenter the other in Sweden with the AiRs Social Practice Residency of the Skövde Museum. Within these residencies Melissa will engage in decolonial projects focusing on Indigenous visiting culture and framing conversations as art practice.

melissashaginoff.com