Allison Warden (AKU-MATU)

Allison Akootchook Warden is an Iñupiaq interdisciplinary artist and a tribal member of the Native Village of Kaktovik. Based in Anchorage, she works across performance art, music, installation, visual art and literary art, and performs hip-hop under the name AKU-MATU, which honors the memory of her great-uncle Matumeak and her great-grandfather Akootchook. An Alaska State Council on the Arts profile describes her as an artist who teaches, performs, writes and raps all over Alaska.

Her touring one-woman show 'Ode to the Polar Bear,' which addresses climate change and Arctic drilling, debuted in 2008 and has traveled throughout Alaska; she later reworked it into a longer piece, 'Calling All Polar Bears,' which premiered in Minneapolis in 2011. Much of her work engages Iñupiaq tradition and the impacts of colonization, and her performances have incorporated Iñupiaq dance.

She has been recognized with numerous fellowships and awards, including the State of Alaska Governor's Award in the Arts and Humanities and a United States Artists Fellowship, and much of her teaching work centers on helping young people connect with their own culture.