Tracy Rector (born 1972) is an American filmmaker, curator, and arts advocate based in Seattle, Washington. She is the executive director and co-founder of

Longhouse Media 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 and former Artistic Director, Annie Silverstein, with the support of the ...

, 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 The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...

, as a native naturalist for the

Olympic Sculpture Park The Olympic Sculpture Park, created and operated by the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), is a public park with modern and contemporary sculpture in downtown Seattle, Washington. The park, which opened January 20, 2007, consists of a outdoor sculpture mu ...

, and has developed curriculum for IslandWood, an environmental education center. She served as a Seattle Arts Commissioner and was the 2017 curator of the Seattle Theatre Group’s Re:definition Gallery.

Career

Tracy Rector earned her BA in Native American studies and communications from

Evergreen State College The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a p ...

and her master's degree in education and teacher certification from

Antioch University Antioch University is a private university with multiple campuses in the United States and online programs. Founded in 1852 as Antioch College, its first president was politician, abolitionist, and education reformer Horace Mann. It changed its ...

’s First Peoples Program. Her focus was collaborative media and identity exploration with at-risk Native youth. Her first feature project, ''Teachings of the Tree People: The Work of Bruce Miller'', brought oral tradition into a contemporary storytelling format while also identifying how Coast Salish communities wanted to be involved in the filmmaking process. Her second feature-length film was the documentary ''March Point'', a collaboration with Longhouse Media co-founder Annie Silverstein and three young

Swinomish The Swinomish are an 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 ...

filmmakers''.'' 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 work has been screened at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival 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, Abori ...

, National Geographic’s All Roads Film Project,

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

, the

and in the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian, and has been nationally broadcast on the PBS film series

Independent Lens ''Independent Lens'' is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of ''Independent Lens'' were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence H ...

. Rector has served as a curriculum advisor for the Seattle Art Museum, assisting in planning for the museum’s expanded Native American wing and the international exhibition S'abadeb—The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists. She has also worked as a native naturalist for the Olympic Sculpture Park and developed curriculum for IslandWood, an environmental education center in Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Selected filmography

As producer

* ''Teachings of the Tree People'' (2006) * ''Giving Thanks'' (2007) * ''March Point'' (2008) * ''Canoe Pulling: A Lummi Way of Life'' (2008) * ''Bunky Echo Hawk: Profile of a Proactive Artist'' (2009) * ''UNRESERVED: The Work of Louie Gong'' (2010) * ''Dos Almas'' (2013) * ''Ronnie BoDean'' (2015) * ''Maiden of Deception Pass: Guardian of Her Samish People'' (2015) * ''Cedar Box Stories'' (2017) * ''Dawnland'' (2018) * ''Manzanar Diverted'' (2021) * ''Outta the Muck'' (TBD 2021) * ''Sweetheart Deal'' (2021)

As director

* ''Teachings of the Tree People'' (2006) * ''Giving Thanks'' (2007) * ''March Point'' (2008) * ''Bunky Echo Hawk: Profile of a Proactive Artist'' (2009) * ''UNRESERVED: The Work of Louie Gong'' (2010) * ''Samish Canoe Journey'' (2014) * ''Maiden of Deception Pass: Guardian of Her Samish People'' (2015) * ''Ch'aak' S'aagi'' / ''Eagle Bone'' - VR (2016) * ''Cedar Box Stories'' (2017)

Awards and honors

* 2008: Horace Mann Award * 2008: Best Feature Documentary Award - ImagineNATIVE * 2009: National Association for Media Literacy for outstanding contributions made in the field of media education * 2011: Sundance Institute Lab Fellow * 2014: Tribeca All Access Grantee * 2016: Best New Digital Media Award - ImagineNATIVE * 2016: The Stranger Genius Award * 2017: Firelight Media Impact Producer Fellow

References

External links

*
Longhouse Media

Clearwater Stories

Meet 2016 Stranger Genius Award Nominee Tracy Rector
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rector, Tracy 1972 births Living people Native American filmmakers Filmmakers from Seattle American women film directors American women film producers Antioch University alumni Film producers from Washington (state) 21st-century American women American women curators American curators