Stephen Qacung Blanchett (Yup’ik Inuit) was participating in a lock-in while on a trip with First Alaskans when he wrote “Our Stories” to impress Joy. Prior to the lock-in, he had spent some time showing her and other colleagues around his home of Bethel, Alaska. On the first day of the two-day lock-in, Blanchett penned the lyrics to a love song for both Joy and for native Alaskan people.

Listen to the stories/we cried and we laughed/lessons from our history/but not of how we go back/cause we strive to move forward/a vision of what we can be/full is our circle/complete as you and me.

It is difficult to talk about Blanchett’s practice as an artist and academic without first thinking about his practice of love. For Blanchett, the future is always in mind, and thinking about the future means thinking about the foregrounding of tenderness. His work towards creating tangible futures for native Alaskans has been supported by numerous fellowships, including a 2019 & 2016 Rasmuson Foundation’s Artist Fellowship and a 2015 National Artist Fellowship through the Native Arts and Culture Foundation. Whether in leadership roles for the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council, Pamyua Inc, and as a solo artist he prioritizes native Alaskan voices, practices, and histories.

In an essay on joy for the New York Review of Books, Zadie Smith refuses to think about joy as simple happiness. She gives us an image of joy as tension between collective pain alongside an intimate moment with the beloved: her soon-to-be husband rubs her feet as the two ride on a train towards Auschwitz. This question of scale is at the fore as we consider Blanchett’s interweaving the personal with the collective in his song. In the lock-in beside his beloved, Blanchett writes “Our Stories.” He listens to the “lessons from our history, but not of how we go back.” As the people around him discuss the future of the native Alaskans, Blanchett writes,

You and me/and we’ll fill it with love/and we’ll fill it with joy/we’ll fill it with pride/a vision of what we can be/my First Alaskans, I love you.

The chorus enters, and we assume romantic love. Our expectations are upturned when we get to the final lyric, “My First Alaskans, I love you.” This juxtaposition of intimacy with the communal brings up the question of “we” and “us.” Can we experience love within a collective that is as tender and personal as it is with a beloved? For Blanchett, the future necessitates it.