“Figment” is an apt name for a gallery that has spent most of its existence thus far as a daydream in the minds of its creators, Alana Ballam-Schwan and Chad Medel. But unlike many daydreams, this one made the leap into reality — and much sooner than expected.

Ballam-Schwan and Medel, both 27, had been talking about opening a gallery for years in a “someday” kind of way, but when the opportunity to open one presented itself, they accelerated their timeline and jumped at the chance.

When Cory Mann returned to Southeast Alaska from San Diego, where his Tlingit mother had taken him as a little boy, he was at first frightened by the immense expanse of wilderness around him — not because he found it quiet and sparsely populated compared to the city, but because he knew it was the opposite.

“The whole world is alive (in Southeast),” Mann says in “Smokin’ Fish,” a new locally produced film in which he is the featured narrator. “In San Diego the only thing alive was the people.”

Revitalization of Alaska’s indigenous languages has largely been focused on two areas: getting Native languages into the mouths and minds of the young, and creating written documentation of ancient oral systems.

In the past few months, two book projects have combined those two areas into one innovative form: books for kids, published in Alaska Native languages. The books put the focus of revitalization efforts even more squarely on those best-postioned to sustain cultural traditions – the kids themselves.

Brittany Troutt has achieved national recognition for the way she dances, but in listening to her describe her attitude toward her work, it’s clear her success is likely due in equal measure to the way she thinks.

Raised in Juneau, Troutt has been mentally and physically focused on her craft since she was a little girl, and seems to have learned early on that the challenge and discipline of dance was a liberating force, a road to achieving her dream.