Though "Yuungnaqpiallerput The Way We Genuinely Live: Masterworks of Yupik Science and Survival" is billed as a science exhibit, the 250 objects brought together in this collection are neither scientific instruments nor art objects, but something in between.

"It's not a science exhibit from the Yupik point of view," said Ann Fienup-Riordan, a cultural anthropologist and the guest curator of the exhibit. "It's about a way of life."

The exhibit is one of two summer installations at the Alaska State Museum and runs from May 16-Oct. 18. Fienup-Riordan will give a preview talk and walk-through at 7 p.m. Monday at the museum.

"Yuungnaqpiallerput" brings together functional objects such as tools, items of clothing and weapons used by the Yupik community to survive and thrive in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta. The idea to put it together came after the successful completion of a previous Yupik exhibit, "Agayuliyararput: Our Way of Making Prayer," a collection of masks, and arose from a desire to show the other aspects of Yupik culture.

"I like to call it 'Yupik everything else'," she said.

The decision to phrase the exhibit's title in the present tense was an important one: It is not a look back at the Yupik culture, but a synthesis of tradition and current modes of living.

"This is a lived culture, it's still going on," she said. "It really does show an integrated view of the world, and it integrates past and present."

Like the Yupik masks exhibit, this one was put together through the collaborative efforts of Fienup-Riordan and the Native elders in the Yupik communities near Bethel, as well as the Anchorage Museum.

Unlike "Agayuliyararput," which was a straightforward display of masks on walls, some of the exhibits in "Yuungnaqpiallerput" are interactive. Fienup-Riordan and the rest of the committee had to dream up the ideas for these projects themselves, with help from the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and the Anchorage's Imaginarium Science Discovery Center.

"They were all really difficult to develop but they really add to a visitor's experience," she said.

One interactive display recreates the experience of listening to the mating call of a bearded seal through the wood handle of a paddle in the water. Another allows visitors to see what life looks like through the narrow slit of a pair of wooden snow goggles (apparently you can see further with them on). A third invites visitors to attempt to pronounce Yupik words; an audiograph lets them know how their sound compares to the real thing.

Visitors can also watch how to make certain sewing stitches on video, or listen to recordings of elders telling a story.

"Their words are what you will hear and read when you visit the exhibit," she said. "It's really their exhibit."

The two main translators Fienup-Riordan worked with for the project were Marie Meade, who also worked on the "Agayuliyararput" exhibit, and Alice Rearden. Elders from Bethel included Paul John, his son Mark, director of the Calista Elders Council, and Frank Andrew, who died in 2006.

"(Andrew) was a technological genius. He remembered everything," Fienup-Riordan said, adding that it was his input that made her believe the exhibit was possible.

Elders in the Yupik communities came up with the list of objects they wanted to include, and Fienup-Riordan went out to find them, scouring collections in museums across the country and even traveling to Berlin to view a collection there.

In some cases, she went searching for a particular object, for example, a drum originally from Nelson Island that had ended up at the Peabody Essex museum in Salem, Mass. The museum staff at first refused to send it, citing concerns about its fragility. After Fienup-Riordan wrote back and told them how much the object meant to people in Bethel, the staff relented and the drum was sent, though it will not be part of the Juneau display.

Other objects that could not be brought to Juneau include those that were too big, such as a new kayak frame and a bearskin boat, both constructed for the exhibit.

After its stop in Juneau, "Yuungnaqpiallerput," which opened in Bethel in September, 2007, will continue on to the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Fienup-Riordan said she hopes that people will bring their children to the museum, as one of the primary motivating factors for the elders who put it together was to share their knowledge with the younger generation. The concept of sharing is what drew her to the community in the first place, she said, when she visited Nelson Island in 1974 and was quickly awed by the generosity of spirit she encountered.

"One thing that makes this exhibit wonderful is the generosity of the elders that shared their knowledge to make it possible," she said.