• Support the emergence of new media works by indigenous artists and communities.
• Create and sustain educational arts and technology programs that are culturally relevant and based in a collaborative process between Longhouse Media, Native youth, elders, educators, youth workers, artists, and filmmakers.
• Break down negative stereotypes of Native people in the media.
• Produce high quality media for the broad community relating to Native issues and people. Also, to support indigenous non-profits with access to affordable media and video productions.
• Provide youth the skills necessary to tell their own stories through digital media.
• Foster experiences for young people that provide career development in the media field, community involvement through media projects, and artistic expression through digital filmmaking.

Staff

Tracy Rector (Seminole), Executive Director, earned her Masters in Education and Teacher Certification from Antioch University’s First Peoples Program. She specializes in Native American Studies, traditional plant medicine and documentary film. As the co-producer of the award-winning films Teachings of the Tree People and The Work of Bruce Miller for the Seattle Art Museum, Tracy has developed an awareness and sensitivity to the power of media and film as a modern storytelling tool. Her work has been featured at National Geographic’s All Roads Film Project and the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian and she is the recent recipient of the prestigious Native American Public Telecommunications Producers grant and Horace Mann Award. As a Native Education specialist, Tracy offers unique insight to her projects. Her vision is to bring traditional and contemporary education together on a foundation based in environmental stewardship. She is currently working with the Seattle Art Museum as an education consultant, as a Native Naturalist for the Olympic Sculpture Park and in planning for the new expanded Native American wing of the Seattle Art Museum and the international exhibition S’abadeb-The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists. Tracy is also currently developing curriculum for IslandWood, an environmental education center. She is the Co-founder of Longhouse Media.

Annie Silverstein, Artistic Director, has been working in the field of filmmaking and youth media for the past 10 years. While majoring in history and receiving a BA from Macalester College, Annie worked at Phillips Community Television as the program coordinator of Our Turn, a monthly television show produced by youth about issues affecting them and the Phillips community. She moved to Seattle in 2002 to direct the Young Producers Project at 911 Media Arts Center, and shortly after, launched the Native Lens program in partnership with the Swinomish Indian Tribe. On the side Annie has continued to write, direct and produce film projects including Chase Me and A Jew's Guide to Christmas, a documentary short that aired on Seattle's PBS member station KCTS and was screened as a Distinguished Feature by the Seattle Art Museum in 2004. Her work has been featured at the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian and has received a seed grant from National Geographic’s All Roads Film Project. In 2007 Annie was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship for her project “Nossas Historias” and spent a year in Rio de Janeiro filming, teaching, and studying the impact of youth media programs in a home for orphaned and displaced youth from Rio’s favelas. She is the Co-founder of Longhouse Media

Sherman Alexie a Spokane/Coeur d' Alene Indian, who grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, WA, is an author, poet, and filmmaker. His first collection of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven  was published by Atlantic Monthly Press in 1993. For this collection he received a PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction, and was awarded a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award. Sherman also won the Murray Morgan Prize for his first novel, Reservation Blues, published in 1995 by Atlantic Monthly Press. His second novel, Indian Killer, published in 1996, also by Atlantic Monthly Press, was named one of People's Best of Pages and a New York Times Notable Book. In 1997, Alexie embarked on another artistic collaboration with Chris Eyre, a Cheyenne/Arapaho Indian. They agreed to collaborate on a film project inspired by Alexie's work.  The basis for the screenplay was "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona," a short story from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Shadow Catcher Entertainment produced the film. Released as Smoke Signals at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1998, the movie won two awards: the Audience Award and the Filmmakers Trophy.  Sherman has been a supporter of Native Lens since it's inception and continues to champion creative expression for Native youth today.

Dana Arviso, a Diné woman in higher education, is currently pursuing a PhD in Education at the University of Washington, where her focus is on the out-of-school literacy experiences of Native American youth. She is especially interested in how Native youth gain opportunities to play with media and technology and how this exposure may help them to become more literate in this digital era. Dana is also a writer, college instructor, amateur photographer, avid facebooker, nonprofit bookkeeper, and a volunteer at a number of social justice-oriented nonprofit organizations.

Sonny Davis, member of the Quinault Tribe, is an entrepreneur, community activist, and budding artist. Sonny earned a bachelor's degree in Business from the University of Washington in 1992 and eventually gained a seat on the Quinault tribal council in a close election in 1999. Sonny championed positive social change through his many volunteer efforts in his tribal community, including coaching grade school basketball, supporting traditional coastal cultural, and helping institutionalize a process for a more transparent and accountable tribal government. In 2003 Sonny was appointed Tribal Liaison for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources by Commissioner of Public Lands, Doug Sutherland. Sonny's introduction to the world of philanthropy came in 2004 when he was asked to join the Board of Directors for the Potlatch Fund a Native non-profit based in Seattle. Currently, Sonny is busy with his startup company called Island Optics LLC which he co-founded with his business partner John Ericks in a unique collaboration and partnership with the Squaxin Island Tribe. Island Optics LLC manufactures patented flex titanium sunglasses and optical frames for wholesale and retail markets. Sonny has three awesome kids, maintains a strong connection to his coastal native culture of clam digging and salmon fishing, and his favorite yoga position is "tree pose"....make that "cedar tree pose!"

Jamie Lee is originally from Northeast Ohio and moved to Seattle in the fall of 2000 to attend the University of Washington for her undergraduate degree. She has a BA in creative writing and a BFA in Printmaking. After graduating, she served a term of AmeriCorps and has been volunteering the past 4 years with homeless and at risk youth in the University District. In addition to that, she worked for two years as operations manager and program administrator for a transitional housing program for single adult women who are homeless. Jamie is a graduate student at the University of Washington, receiving a concurrent degree from the Evans School of Public Affairs and the School of Social Work. She is in the second year of her program and will receive the MPA/MSW in June of 2011

Cynthia Masterson (Comanche) graduated from the University of Washington Business School after transferring from Seattle Central Community College (SCCC). Cynthia feels that her skills were developed while on the Student Council at SCCC and honed through the Mary Gates Leadership Scholarship and Pipeline Project at UW. In her current position at the University of Washington, as the Diversity Scholars Counseling Service Coordinator, she is responsible for identifying the needs of the students she works with as well as acting as a liaison to UW Development and other departments. Cynthia has a passion for supporting personal accountability, fair access to educational resources as well as advocating for support to those students seeking higher education..

Tanya Powers is currently earning her PhD at Seattle University in Education, after having recently completed her Master of Public Administration. She is researching the retention rate of Native American students in higher education. For the past few years Tanya has worked, as a Work First Financial Aid Coordinator, to assist low-income parents to develop and implement educational plans. Tanya is a Gates Millennium Scholar, and currently serves on the board of a number of educational and community institutions. As a board member for the Seattle Center Advisory Commission, she has been part of the development and construction of the Center House's approach to diverse community development, involvement and representation. Tanya is a Siberian Y'upik from Alaska, the mother of two strong girls, and has been living and working in Seattle for the past 10 years.

Rose Stiffarm is a Blackfoot, Tsartlip, Cowichan, Cree, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine and Sioux student at Garfield High School. She is extremely active in the drama and music departments, and has been stage manager in several school productions. She also has taken leadership roles in the following Native youth and community organizations: the All Native Basketball league, acting and drama with Red Eagle Soaring, Iwasil: Boys and Girls Club, the Indian Health Board and has contributed to Native Lens for two years as a youth producer and mentor.