About the artist

Allison Akootchook Warden, also known as Iñupiaq rapper AKU-MATU, is a tribal member of the Native Village of Kaktovik. She is a multidisciplinary artist who has traveled and performed around the world. In 2022, her poetry was part of “Insidious Rising,” a hyphen-labs project for Google Arts and Cultures. In 2019, she received a United States Artists Fellowship, which includes an unrestricted $50,000 grant.

2022 Fellowship Award

Warden, also known as Iñupiaq rapper AKU-MATU, is a tribal member of the Native Village of Kaktovik. Warden will create a publishing company to record and distribute her first album of Elder-inspired hip-hop songs, which have only been performed in live concerts.

2018 Fellowship Award

Warden will travel for research in a collaboration with photographer Brian Adams. The resulting multimedia exhibition will be based on recreated images from the era of Alaska’s early oil. Iñupiat will be photographed wearing clothing from the Middle East. People from that part of the world will wear traditional Iñupiaq regalia and historic dress from the 1970s. She hopes to elevate the Iñupiaq worldview.

2015 Fellowship Award

Warden will focus on her latest work, Unipkaagusiksuguvik, the place of the future/ancient.

2012 Project Award

Warden will purchase a digital camera that also records video to document work.