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Centering transformative stories about stolen people on stolen land.
About iMPACT LENS
iMPACT LENS is a narrative justice incubator providing resources and training in non-extractive media-based storytelling and impact producing to BIPoC creatives.
We believe in the power of impact-driven radical storytelling to inspire healing from generational trauma and empower marginalized communities to liberate themselves from oppressive narratives that do not serve them.
We leverage technology and the digital landscape to strengthen connections across diasporas and cultivate opportunities for BIPoC creatives to collaborate in impactful ways.
We acknowledge that we gather on land that was stolen from the Puyallup people and Coast Salish territories, who are the true stewards of this land. We acknowledge the sacrifices of Indigenous Africans whose stolen labor was used to work this land. And we acknowledge immigrant communities whose contributions continue to deepen and diversify the cultural fabric of the nation that occupies this land.
Puyallup Tribe
Land Acknowledgement
ʔuk’wədiitəb ʔuhigwətəb čəɫ txwəl tiiɫ ʔa čəɫ ʔal tə swatxwixwtxwəd ʔə tiiɫ puyaləpabš dxwəsɫaɫlils gwəl ʔutxwəlšucidəbs həlgwəʔ.
We gratefully acknowledge that we rest on the traditional lands of the Puyallup People where they make their home and speak the Lushootseed language.
iMPACT LENS Principles + Guiding Frameworks
What we create is rooted in an impact producing framework (social change + media strategy = impact-driven media) and non-extractive storytelling techniques. Our commitment to transformative equity and justice is informed by the following values that we work and live by:
Centering under-resourced creatives who identify as Black, Indigenous or People of Color as creators and consumers of media.
Resourcing communities who are under-represented in media and the arts such as BIPoC folx, folx living with disabilities, Trans, non-binary, queer, low-income, women, and undocumented folx (an abbreviated list).
Decolonizing our origin stories and producing media that uplifts Black liberation and Indigenous sovereignty through the social and historical lenses of these communities.
Practicing culturally affirming storytelling that honors the intersectionality of diverse identities and lived experiences.
Embodying a trauma-informed analysis of systemic oppression as it relates to representations of generational and historical trauma.
Promoting personal and collective healing through a Narrative Justice model called Consciously Bearing Witness that serves to empower marginalized communities to tell their own stories and be witnessed on their own terms.
Committing to a rigorous practice of reflecting on our impact as media makers and storytellers through radical humility and accountability rooted in continuous community engagement.
Normalizing returning to ancestral ways of knowing, being and connecting in body, mind and spirit.
The Producers
CHIMAERA (ky-mare-uh)
they/them
Founder + Executive Director
CHIMAERA is a Black, non-binary, trans, queer multidisciplinary artist and organizer from Tacoma, Washington located on the stolen ancestral lands of the Puyallup people and Coast Salish Territories.
In 2018, CHIMAERA founded Cathartic Muse, a media production company focused on using trauma informed storytelling and immersive creative experiences to elevate marginalized voices in media that included the Memoirs from the Diaspora screening and artist panel in partnership with Seattle Public Library, the SKINFOLK documentary series highlighting the cultural history of the headwrap among Black people that premiered at The Evergreen State College in Tacoma, WA, and the Wa Na Wari documentary in partnership devon de Leña and Vanishing Seattle centering the anti-displacement efforts of a Black-owned art gallery in Seattle, WA's historically Black Central District neighborhood.
For two decades, their body of work has focused on engaging BIPoC folx in transformative, intersectional healing justice practices that includes using trauma informed storytelling to bear witness to the experiences of stolen people on stolen land including the most recent installment of the iMPACT LENS Narrative Justice Film Fellowship centering Tacoma, Washington’s Hilltop neighborhood. CHIMAERA is the Founder, Executive Director and Lead Impact Producer of iMPACT LENS and is currently the Executive Director of Powerful Voices in Seattle, WA.
devon de Leña
she/her
Co-Producer
devon is an award-winning filmmaker, leadership coach, community facilitator, and politicized healer born and raised in occupied Duwamish Territory in the Pacific Northwest. For over fifteen years, she has been working at the intersection of social justice, movement building, and cultural-change work. She belives in a future of collective liberation, dignity and interdependence and utilizes the tools of leadership development, media-making and healing justice to shift culture and incite change.
In 2017 devon became an award-winning film director for her first film Battle Grounds: the hard hits of female poppers. The film won the “Emerging Filmmaker Award” at the APA D.C. Film Festival, Best Shorts Festival and was officially selected for Seattle Asian American Film Festival, San Fransisco Dance Film Festival, Mixed Remixed Festival, La Femme International Film Festival and Chi-Town Film Festival.
devon is currently co-producing the Finding Our Way podcast with Prentis Hemphill and developing the full-length documentary Remembering Our Mothers. www.devondelena.com