Four Questions with Kip Fulbeck: The Hapa Project/Alaska
Sept. 23, 2026
For more than two decades, artist Kip Fulbeck has used portraiture and participants’ own words to explore identity and belonging through The Hapa Project. With The Hapa Project/Alaska, Fulbeck brings that approach to Anchorage, creating portraits with Alaskans and inviting participants to define themselves.
We spoke with Fulbeck about where the project began, what he encountered in Alaska, and why the people in his photographs, not the photographer, remain at the center of the work.
1. Where did the idea for The Hapa Project begin?
Kip Fulbeck: It’s a concept I actually thought of when I was about seven years old.
We were in second grade, and there was this giant map of the world. Every kid got a little pushpin with their initials, and one by one we walked up and put pins where our ancestors came from.
As the only Asian kid at my school, I remember watching Western Europe just get filled up. I waited until last to go. Then I walked up and went to England, Ireland, and then I had to walk across the whole wall to get to China. The class laughed.
As a kid, you feel like you’re really being singled out.
I come from an immigrant Chinese family. My siblings are full-blooded Asian. I’m my dad’s only kid. At home, I was the white kid, and at school, I was the Asian kid. I had no place to find cultural footing.
I remember being seven years old and thinking,
I wonder if any other kid is dealing with what I’m dealing with?
That idea stayed with me. Eventually, it became this project.
2. What did you find when you brought the project to Alaska?
KF: I had not been to Alaska, and I was really struck by the diversity here. Not just in terms of ethnicity, but in terms of people and attitudes.
I came up twice, and I really sort of fell in love with this place.
What was important was making connections. I couldn’t just walk into a community and say, “Hey, let me take your picture.” It was about meeting people and building trust. Once I made a connection with one person, it would open another door. Someone would say, “Oh, you’ve got to photograph this person,” and it would grow from there.
Once people understood who I was, that I was an artist too, and what the project was about, they were really welcoming.
Fulbeck photographs a portrait during the exhibition opening of The Hapa Project/Alaska.
3. How much control do participants have over their portraits and what they write?
KF: I try not to interfere with what people write, but I do nudge them.
The phrase I use is to make something “non-transferable.” Make it so that if you handed your statement to somebody else and they read it, it wouldn’t sound like them.
People sometimes think, I have to write something profound. I have to write something really meaningful.
No, you don’t.
It can be funny. It can be personal. It can be whatever feels like you.
It’s the same with the photograph. I’m trying to get people to look as neutral as they can because we’re trained to perform in front of a camera. I usually take a couple of shots and let the subject look.
I tell them: “I have the camera, but it’s your picture.”
That’s really important to me. Identity is something that you decide. It’s not for me to tell you who you are.
It is my idea, but it’s just my idea. The people are really the story. I created a system that allows people to come in and tell their stories.
4. How did you think about the experience of The Hapa Project/Alaska as an exhibition?
KF: When I design things, I’m really considering the energy.
I didn’t just pick images. I’m thinking: If people come in from here, what’s their flow? What’s the energy? Will they read this one or this one? Should something be higher or lower?
I think people don’t necessarily see those decisions, but they feel them. Good design is invisible.
The ravens are part of that. What I like about ravens is that they’re really wise birds. They can be elusive, but they’re also very intelligent. And when something threatens the group, they come together.
I thought that was really interesting: the idea that you can find similarities among differences and realize we have to stick together.
A group of people enjoys The Hapa Project/Alaska on opening day, Sept. 18, 2026.
The finished portraits reveal Fulbeck’s approach: he takes the photograph, while participants choose the words that accompany it. The result keeps the people photographed, not the photographer, at the center of the project.
The Hapa Project/Alaska is on view through Spring 2027 in the Art of the North Galleries.