What is the Kuspuk Project?
The Kuspuk Project is a collaboration between Title VII Indian Education, Living Cultural Storybases, and the Alaska Native Cultural Charter School. Students will learn about the history and significance of kuspuks, the traditional Yup'ik overshirt, create their own, and document the process using video and photography. Once the kuspuks are completed, they will upload their documentation and link to it using QR tags that will be sewn into the kuspuk itself. People will be able to scan the QR tags on the kuspuk and immediately be able to see how the students made it!
Update: January 27th, 2011We've completed the first phase of our Kuspuk Project on Friday at the Alaska Native Cultural Charter School! Ms. Lucy Brown, Agnes Baptiste, and Rosa Luhrs were kind enough to come to the school and show the 7th grade Yup'ik class a beautiful sample of their kuspuks. They explained to the students how kuspuks are made, the history behind them, and their cultural significance. We were also treated to several riveting stories from Agnes about village life!
Next we will organize into groups and start planning to create their own kuspuks! We will be showing them how to use the cameras to record their process next Friday.
- Paul Rankin, Founder of Living Cultural Storybases
- Robin Izora, Adviser, Living Cultural Storybases
- Katie Tunuchuk, Yup'ik teacher at ANCCS
- Dr. Roy Mitchell, Linguistic Anthropologist at UAA
