EP 116 Museums in a Climate of Change Part 2: The Museum as a Collaborator with Julie Decker

Crude Conversations

Julie Decker is the director and CEO of the Anchorage Museum. But before that she practiced as an artist and ran her own art gallery. Since then she’s fostered a belief in the power of museums to spark action — whether that means picking up a paintbrush, reading a new book, or seeing the world differently. Her connection to the Anchorage Museum runs back to childhood, when it was little more than a single room with a borrowed collection. Her dad was a visual artist and an art teacher; he was her earliest and most influential guide into that world. He taught her to be an observer — to notice the small things — and she watched as his own work appeared in solo shows and juried exhibitions at the museum. So, for Julie, the Anchorage Museum isn’t just a workplace; it’s been a constant presence in her life, shaping her sense of art, community and possibility.

In the work she does now, Julie envisions the Anchorage Museum as less a keeper of artifacts and more of a living platform for Alaska’s stories. It acts as a collaborator and a partner — a place that listens to communities, amplifies the voices of Alaskans and connects local narratives to global conversations. In her view, Alaska’s relatively small population allows individual creativity and innovation to ripple widely, making it vital to highlight imaginative thinkers, cultural disruptors and non-Western ways of knowing. That means rethinking what it means to collect — not simply holding objects, but being a responsible host and steward of the stories they carry.

In Alaska, where the natural world shapes identity and guides daily life, the museum’s role is to reflect how environmental change, Indigenous lifeways and community resilience intersect. Some projects take the form of exhibitions, others emerge as films, books, podcasts, newspaper series, or collaborations with musicians. Whether the work is local or part of an international conversation, Julie believes it must be rooted in place — fluid, adaptable and focused on a shared future that feels possible and inhabitable.

In this Chatter Marks series, Cody and co-host Dr. Sandro Debono talk to museum directors and knowledge holders about what museums around the world are doing to adapt and react to climate change. Dr. Debono is a museum thinker from the Mediterranean island of Malta. He works with museums to help them strategize around possible futures.