Formation | January 2005 by Tracy Rector and Annie Silverstein |
---|---|
Location | |
Staff | 7 |
Volunteers | 30 |
Website | http://www.longhousemedia.org |
Longhouse Media is a Washington state non-profit indigenous media arts organization, based in Seattle. It was established in January 2005 by Executive Director, Tracy Rector [1] and former Artistic Director, Annie Silverstein, with the support of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. Longhouse Media supports the use of today’s technologies by indigenous people and communities as a tool for self-expression, cultural preservation, and social change. [2] [3] [4] Longhouse Media counts 4 full-time and 3 part-time staff, 30 active volunteers, and 8 board members. Among the founding board members is award-winning author, playwright and poet Sherman Alexie, from the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Tribes.
Central to Longhouse Media is its commitment to providing youth the skills necessary to tell their own stories through digital media. Its youth media program ‘Native Lens’ brings digital media training to Native youth in rural and urban settings and teaches filmmaking to Native youth as a form of inquiry, community development, and cultural pride and preservation. Native Lens was the recipient of the 2007 Seattle Mayor’s Award. [5] In 2009, the monthly television show Native Lens TV was launched. Since 2005 Longhouse Media has worked with a documented 1500 youth and 31 separate tribes. Productions by Longhouse Media include the feature-length documentary March Point [6] which aired nationally on the award-winning PBS series Independent Lens [7] [8] and the short film UNRESERVED: The Work of Louie Gong about Seattle-based artist and activist Louie Gong. [9] [10] [11] [12]
Each year Longhouse Media partners with the Seattle International Film Festival to organize and host the SuperFly Filmmaking Experience. It also collaborates with the Northwest Film Forum and National Geographic All Roads Film Project to present a monthly film series showcasing emerging talents in indigenous communities. Longhouse Media also supports and participates in the annual Urban Native art exhibit "First Expressions" to challenge common stereotypes and misconceptions through up and coming Pacific Northwest Native and indigenous artists. In 2009 Longhouse Media received the National Association for Media Literacy Education Award. [13] As a young non profit organization, Longhouse Media tries to balance the internal and external challenges it faces. Areas of improvement as identified by a Graduate Consultant Team from Seattle University would be the Board’s fundraising strategy, its performance monitoring, and the management of critical events. [14]
In March 2010, a Longhouse Media March Point documentary photo was used in an online extraction ad for Native youth in Ontario, Canada. The service offered to "round up and remove First Nations youth like wild animals, and habitat." [15] [16] [17] Among many to respond, author and poet Sherman Alexie also spoke out, saying, "As much as the world has changed for indigenous people in good ways, there are still many violent and hateful folks out there who seek to harm us, and we must condemn them in print and in action, and we must do this together." [15]
The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) is a nonprofit arts organization based in Seattle, Washington, United States. Established in 1976, SIFF has evolved into one of the most prestigious and long-standing film festivals in North America. Originally an annual film festival, SIFF has expanded into four year-round cinemas, as well as an education program that includes classes, workshops, and youth camps.
La Conner is a town in Skagit County, Washington, United States with a population of 965 at the 2020 census. It is included in the Mount Vernon–Anacortes, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town hosts several events as part of the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival held in April.
The Suquamish are a Lushootseed-speaking Native American people, located in present-day Washington in the United States. They are a southern Coast Salish people. Today, most Suquamish people are enrolled in the federally recognized Suquamish Tribe, a signatory to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. Chief Seattle, the famous leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish Tribes for which the City of Seattle is named, signed the Point Elliot Treaty on behalf of both Tribes. The Suquamish Tribe owns the Port Madison Indian Reservation.
The Duwamish are a Lushootseed-speaking Native American people in western Washington, and the indigenous people of metropolitan Seattle, where they have been living since the end of the last glacial period. The modern Duwamish descend from at least two separate groups: the dxʷdəwʔabš, or Duwamish, and the x̌ačuʔabš, or Hachuamish, being the largest. Traditionally, the Duwuamish spoke a subdialect of the southern dialect of Lushootseed, which is a Salishan dialect continuum that is spoken throughout the Puget Sound region of Washington.
The Swinomishpeople are a historically Lushootseed-speaking Native American people in western Washington state in the United States. The Tribe lives in the southeastern part of Fidalgo Island in northern Puget Sound, near the San Juan Islands, in Skagit County, Washington. Skagit County is located about 70 miles (110 km) north of Seattle.
The Stranger is an alternative biweekly newspaper in Seattle, Washington, U.S. The paper's principal competitor is The Seattle Weekly, owned by Sound Publishing, Inc.
Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. is a Native American novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington.
Smoke Signals is a 1998 coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Chris Eyre from a screenplay by Sherman Alexie, based on Alexie's short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993). The film won several awards and accolades, and was well received at numerous film festivals.
The Intertribal Canoe Journey is a celebrated event of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Organizers call it the Canoe Journey or Intertribal Canoe Journey, and colloqually Tribal Journeys. It is also referred to by its destination, i.e. Paddle to Muckleshoot.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a first-person narrative novel by Sherman Alexie, from the perspective of a Native American teenager, Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as "Junior," a 14-year-old promising cartoonist. The book is about Junior's life on the Spokane Indian Reservation and his decision to go to a nearly all-white public high school away from the reservation. The graphic novel includes 65 comic illustrations that help further the plot.
Gail Tremblay was an American writer and artist from Washington State. She is known for weaving baskets from film footage that depicts Native American people, such as Western movies and anthropological documentaries. She received a Washington State Governor's Arts and Heritage Award in 2001.
The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is the world's largest Indigenous film and media arts festival, held annually in Toronto in the month of October. The festival focuses on the film, video, radio, and new media work of Indigenous, Aboriginal and First Peoples from around the world. The festival includes screenings, parties, panel discussions, and cultural events.
Sonicsgate: Requiem for a Team is a 2009 American documentary film chronicling the history of the Seattle SuperSonics. The SuperSonics were a professional basketball franchise based in Seattle, Washington, that was a member of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Sonics played from 1967 until 2008, but relocated from Seattle to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and were renamed as the Thunder.
Robert Arthur Alexie was a Canadian First Nations novelist and a land claim negotiator who played a key role in land claim agreements in the Northwest Territories.
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, also known as the Swinomish Tribe, is a federally recognized Tribe located on Puget Sound in Washington, United States. They are an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest that includes the Central and Coast Salish peoples who lived in the Samish and Skagit River valleys, nearby coasts, and islands. The Tribe's population includes Swinomish, Lower Skagit, Upper Skagit, Kikiallus, and Samish peoples.
The American Indian Library Association (AILA) awards are presented every two years to recognize the most outstanding contributions to children's literature by and about American Indians. The awards were established as a way to identify and honor the very best writing and illustrations by and about American Indians. Books selected to receive the award will present American Indians in the fullness of their humanity in the present and past contexts.
Louie Gong is a Canadian American visual artist, activist, public speaker, educator, and entrepreneur. His work focuses on Indigenous and multiracial identity, exploring race and identity through art, and expanding business leadership and capacity for Native artists.
Tracy Rector is an American filmmaker, curator, and arts advocate based in Seattle, Washington. She is the executive director and co-founder of Longhouse Media, an Indigenous and POC media arts organization and home of the nationally acclaimed program Native Lens. She has worked as an education consultant at the Seattle Art Museum, as a native naturalist for the Olympic Sculpture Park, and has developed curriculum for IslandWood, an environmental education center.
Annie Silverstein is an American film director and screenwriter.
Ramona Bennett is an American Puyallup leader and activist who was involved in the 1960s and 1970s Fish Wars of the US Pacific Northwest and in tribal sovereignty.