Collective Spirit Podcast

S3E2: 2024 Community Spirit Awardee, Golga Oscar (Yup'ik)

• First Peoples Fund • Season 3 • Episode 2

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Have you ever wondered how art can be a powerful vessel for preserving cultural heritage? Meet 2024 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award Honoree Golga Oscar (Yup'ik), who shares their profound journey from a childhood fascination with Inuit art to becoming a celebrated textile artist rooted in the rich traditions of the Yupik Nation. Golga recounts their awe-inspiring experiences at the Yup'ik dance ceremony, Kuvvigik, and how these cultural moments propelled them to create traditional attire that honors her ancestors. Discover the pivotal role their community and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) played in shaping their artistic journey, and how their art becomes a bridge to her spiritual connection with nature. 

Speaker 1:

When I started to realize the importance of my culture, identity, along with the traditions that it has, the more I found beauty in it, and what I mean by beauty is that the significance of the stories, the color and number system, of how my people used to be deeply rooted into the spiritual system and of how the spiritual system really connects with Mother Earth and sky.

Speaker 2:

First Peoples Fund presents the Collective Spirit Podcast. The Collective Spirit moves each of us to stand up and make a difference, to pass on ancestral knowledge and simply extend a hand of generosity. The Collective Spirit podcast features Native artists and culture bearers who discuss the power of Indigenous art and culture culture.

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone, my name is Cookie. My English name is Golga. I am from the Yupik Nation, specifically located in the southwest of Alaska. My artistic medium is textile work. I do a lot of work that emphasizes around Yupik culture, such as Yupippie headdresses, yippie parkas, mukluks, beadwork, quillwork. Yeah, so the way that I started within working with these materials was back during my freshman year in high school. As a kid, while growing up in my mother's village, kasigaluk, there was a display case out in our school over at the lobby and the display case was filled with a lot of Inuit art specifying Yippie culture. So as a kid, I was always intrigued by that display case. Every time when we used to line up for gym time, we would walk towards the gym and we would pass that display case, and every time when we we would pass it, I would have my eyes like looking around that display case, exploring it. But yeah, it wasn't until.

Speaker 1:

2010 is when I first experienced my first Yupik ceremony out in Tununuk, my father's village. During that ceremony, it was my first time experiencing such a beautiful Yupik dance ceremony, and that ceremony is called Kuvvigik. Kuvvigik all translates to a messenger feast, and during that time, each beginning of the year, the spring season is when the ceremony starts and when dances happen, they have their own headdresses, they have their own maklaks, their own dance fads and their own qasbaks and necklaces. I mean, while I was observing that each of the pieces with Nyiipik attire had its own uniqueness because it was different from one another, and one of the things that really caught my eye was beauty of the attire, of how it flowed during the dance, and then, from that point on, I started to explore hippie headdresses. One of the things that I forgot to mention is that my father's region, since they live on the Bering Sea, they really rely on ocean to see mammals. It was my first time stretching a seal hide and this really inspired me from seeing seal skin mukluks. I had help from my mother, which was a very special opportunity from learning from her. As the years progressed, as my sewing progressed, I started to explore other projects, such as mittens, fur hats and a pair of muck looks. But yeah, that's where my inspiration came from.

Speaker 1:

When I started to progress in my sewing career, the community of Aie Aie really helped me in strengthening my identity, my Yupik identity. The community of Aie Aie really helped me in strengthening my identity, my Yupik identity. When I first started Aie Aie, I was culturally shocked by the culture each tribe had and how their culture are deeply rooted into their art and I was very inspired by that. So when I started to realize the importance of my culture, identity, along with the traditions that it has, and I found beauty in it, and what I mean by beauty is that the significance of the stories, the color and number system, of how my people used to be deeply rooted into the spiritual system and of how the spiritual, spiritual system really connects with mother earth and sky.

Speaker 1:

In yuppie culture or in indigenous culture, you can do so many things within producing art. We, by using, utilizing natural resources, that you're practicing your ancestors' work and you're focusing on the spiritual significance of an item. I think, because Alaska is one of the top three states that is known for its higher rates of suicide, is because a lot of Alaska N natives don't know who they are. It's because of that cultural genocide that I was wiped out, wiped away from them. So I'm very thankful that I attended IAIA and it's really benefited me throughout those years of attending, because exploring other forms of cultural art was very inspirational. I'm very thankful for how much they've taught me, especially the friends that I've created that became family. It's all about supporting one another, because when you support one another, then you support your own career as well. My current inspiration is conducting research about my culture, my people, through stories and through kanroo yutut oral instructions, and through these stories I've been gaining so much information about my own people that my family hasn't told me about. It really strengthens my spiritual identity of how my ancestors used to practice praying through using a yippie drum, through dances a yippie drum through dances and in our culture we say that every time when we dance we have to think of our loved ones or the things that we want to achieve, or the things that we want, because a lot of elders say that mind is a is a powerful thing. You have to be careful of how you use it.

Speaker 1:

The challenge that I faced within my career is being the only family member that focused around the aspect of Yupik identity and excluding this Western lifestyle, excluding this Western ideology. There were times where I was called the devil. I mean, for example and I didn't really take that as an offense, because that's more of a Western aspect other than indigenous aspect there are 144,000 Inuits and there are 144,000 ways to be Inuit, and the more I practiced, the more I started to understand that there are different ways to be Inuit and each one has their own belief system, their own ways of overcoming the challenges. And every time when I came upon that challenge, I also would reflect back on how much work that I've been doing throughout these past years. It really eases my mind and it really makes me proud of how much I'm making my ancestors proud, of how much I'm making my loved ones proud.

Speaker 1:

So what I'm currently doing is coordinating workshops within the community of Bethel. So far I've been sharing this knowledge within my people and those people that are affiliated with my tribe and non-Indigenous people. Every time when I share it, I feel gratitude towards those elders that were sharing what they used to hear. I'm hoping to travel into villages more often this coming fall and winter to spread more inspiration among the younger generation and this current generation. I want them to realize that Arabic culture has its own beauty, as its native culture has its own beauty, that it can save one's life from substance use to trauma, abuse and all forms of Western lifestyle, once a person excludes that from their identity and when they focus on their native identity, they'll find beauty in it, they'll find meaning of it, meaning in life in it. So what Community Spirit Award means to me is I'm a culture bearer and being a culture bearer is an important factor in today's generation. And after receiving this award it really opened my eyes on how I can pursue more within my community by inspiring the younger generation to pursue cultural arts, because you never know who you're going to inspire.

Speaker 1:

So focused on the aspect of producing work, and producing work to a point where we forget who is watching us. Our Yippik way of life is really important to us. When I taught that to this current and younger generation, I was in joy. When I held that aspect of knowledge and sharing it with the people my surroundings, especially the community that I grew up in, it was a great sense of joy.

Speaker 1:

In our Yiddish culture this aspect of giving is a sense of gratitude and giving.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't only have to be certain material giving, but it can also be knowledge giving.

Speaker 1:

Material giving but it can also be knowledge giving living.

Speaker 1:

Through that aspect of giving it really shows of how one. It really shows of how one really loves their community, their own people, the way that their future holds. They want them to pursue the same aspects so that they can be more successful. And that's what community spirit means to me is meaning of how I want the future generations to be and of how it means to be a leader and how a leader should work within the community other than being the only one to lead other forms of work. I want to create a safe space within decolonizing Indigenous folks who are pursuing their arts. I want them to feel the importance of creating art within this modern society. I want them to know that sharing knowledge is a sense of gratitude, and having that gratitude has been practiced for thousands of years, and they say that meaning if you pursue good within your community, then you will pursue good in life the collective spirit podcast is produced by first people's fund, whose mission is to honor and support indigenous artists and culture bearers through grant making initiatives.