Lenfest O&E Series: "Voices of the Pamunkey: Film Screenings and Q&A with Ethan Brown"

Lenfest O&E Series: "Voices of the Pamunkey: Film Screenings and Q&A with Ethan Brown"

October 14 at 5:30 p.m. in Northern Auditorium
Free and Open to the Public

Ethan Brown stands out as a self-taught, multi-disciplinary artist, filmmaker and storyteller who is a citizen of the Pamunkey Indian Tribe and resides on the Pamunkey Reservation in King William, Virginia. Deeply rooted in his cultural heritage, Brown's work draws inspiration from Pamunkey history and tradition, intertwining themes of identity, community and nature through media such as gourd art, oil painting, sculpture, pottery and experimental filmmaking.

His work has earned wide recognition, with commissions from the Big Ideas Company in London, the King William Historical Museum, the Chesapeake Bay National Parks and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where his painting "Walter Bradby" is in the permanent collection. Brown's gourd art, such as "Medicine Man," has also won awards, reflecting the unique intersection of Pamunkey culture and modern creativity.

Brown's recent foray into filmmaking further expands his unique storytelling. The Kamen Gallery Pop-Up—part of Lenfest's O&E 2025 Series,—features screenings of two films: "First Landings" and the Emmy® nominated short documentary "Connecting Currents -Pamunkey River: Lifeblood of our People" for which Brown contributed photographic work.

"First Landings" uses non-Western cinema to reflect on the far-reaching effectos of European colonization of the Americas on Indigenous peoples. Interwoven story lines span Canda, Virginia and Mexico: a French fur trapper confronts questions of reality, a Powhatan boy  experiences a traditional coming-of-age ceremony and Nahua carnival regalia embodies five centuries of resistance. These diverse scenes converge in a vision of lost cultural artifacts, represented by the Uttamusak stone—symbolizing both a warning from the past and hope for Indigenous futures through a dual image of the sun.

"Connecting Currents—Pamunkey River: Lifeblood of our People" (2020),  produced with NOAA, documnets how the Pamunkey River—lifeline of the tribe for over 400 years—faces environmental threats and how the Paumnukey people, in partnership with governmental agencies, are working to restore native fish population to this essential waterway.

Brown explains, "Filmmaking just allows me to go deeper and more complex with telling stories and creating experiences. It shares things like composition or else certain themes and images with my visual art, but with an added level of the unknown to the creative process. I like going back and forth between working on films or making visual art because they each have strengths of expression."

As a speaker and educator, Brown has held artist residencies, given lectures and led workshops at Virginia Commonwealth University and beyond, sharing his and his community's stories with new generations. With ongoing commissions focused on significant moments in Pamunkey and Virginia Indian history, his evolving body of work preserves adn celebrates native culture, offering audiences a chance to experience Indigenous creativey and resilience firsthand.