March 2011
 Tracy
Rector (Seminole) is the executive director and co-founder of Longhouse Media and its youth media project, Native Lens, a partnership with the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. Longhouse Media won the National Association for Media Literacy Education Award in 2009, and in 2008 Rector received Antioch University’s Horace Mann Award for her work in empowering Native youth. In collaboration with Annie Silverstein and three young Swinomish filmmakers to create Longhouse Media's feature-length production, March Point (2008). This environmental documentary received an All Roads Film Project Seed Grant and was recognized by UNESCO as an example of indigenous grassroots mobilization in response to climate change. Rector’s recent production, UNRESERVED: The Work of Louie Gong, has screened widely at domestic and international festivals.
Rector is a Native education specialist, serving as education consultant for the Seattle Art Museum, to assist with planning for the museum's expanded Native American wing and for a new international exhibition on Coast Salish art. She developed curriculum materials for the exhibition Song Story Speech: Oral Traditions of Puget Sound's First People (2005) for the museum, as well as humanities and science curricula for Muckleshoot Tribal College. Rector is also a Native Naturalist for the Olympic Sculpture Park and curriculum developer for IslandWood, an environmental education center. The curriculum she created for the film Teachings of the Tree People: The Work of Bruce Miller (2006), for which she was co-producer, has been recognized as a Gold Standard Model by the Northwest Folklife Council.
Rector has served as a juror for the Northwest Indigenous Film Festival, the Seattle Arts Commission, and the Seattle International Film Festival. She is also involved in numerous community organizations in Seattle, including the Mayor's Task Force Against Youth Violence and Red Eagle Soaring. She received an MA from the First Peoples' Education program, a partnership between Antioch University Seattle and Muckleshoot Tribal College. Her BA in Native American Studies and Communications is from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She lives in Seattle, Washington, her hometown.
"I have learned from the Skokomish people that none of us
are able to succeed alone. Filmmaking is new to me so I surround
myself with humble experts of high integrity that have the ability
and strength to share their knowledge. When I give back to the
community it is my way of saying 'thank you' to everyone who has
mentored me and believed in me."
Screened by NMAI
Image credit: Tracy
Rector - photograph by Jack Storm
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