“Lineage: Tlingit Artists Across Generations” shines a light on Tlingit masters, their apprentices and their descendants. It is a story of legacy, and of how generations renew the spirit and form of their ancestral visual culture with every chip carved, fiber woven, bead sewn, and step danced. This is a story of cultural awareness and resurgence, all told through the perspectives of the Indigenous artists, illuminating cultural lifeways and ways of being and knowing that have fostered an artform that has long fascinated and beguiled viewers across the world.
The film follows three lineages of artists: Jennie Thlunaut and her apprentice, the late Clarissa Rizal, who taught many including Ricky Tagaban and Lily Hope; the descendants of George Benson, including Nick and Jerrod Galanin; and the Marks family, including masters Willie and Emma Marks and their children, such as Paul Marks and Nora Dauenhauer who is the caretaker of many of the family’s treasures and is a renowned poet, scholar and cultue bearer.