First Light Flashback - Annawon Weeden

August 10, 2025 · 3 p.m.

Garden House

Join us for an interactive, theatrical performance and time traveling experience with educator and artist Annawon Weeden.

Take a walk through time. Feel the sense of freedom that can only be found prior to colonization. Experience the dynamics of what it was like to take part in the first encounter of Europeans arriving to be discovered by the inhabitants of Turtle Island. Hear more from Squanto and how helpful he truly was. Witness the ferocity of an agitated King Phillip. See how slavery impacted the New England region as well as how the whaling also shaped the identity of New England tribes today.

All this and more unfolds before your eyes - audience participation encouraged.

Registration will open in the summer.

About Annawon Weeden: With many miles on his moccasins, Annawon has traveled extensively throughout Turtle Island and beyond. Blistering cold trips to remote Alaskan villages, workshops within the desert of the southwest, performing on tropical islands such as Hawaii or Bermuda, Annawon has witnessed firsthand how other tribes maintain their sovereignty, which has reinforced his pride within his own New England native tribal roots.

With ancestry representing his Pequot and Narragansett lineage, Annawon is also an enrolled member of his mother’s Mashpee Wampanoag community of Cape Cod. Currently employed as a cultural instructor for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal government, much of his free time is spent creating indigenous art such as his wampum jewelry fashion line (First Light Fashion) or representing the indigenous voice while conducting educational programming under the label of First Light Fun.

Annawon has appeared at prestigious venues such as Smithsonian, National Geographic, Scholastic, PBS, History/Discovery Channel, Alaska Native Heritage Center, Harvard University, Tennessee Tech & many more. In addition, his cultural expertise has been called upon by such international government agencies as: Bermuda Ministry of Cultural Affairs, U.S. National Park Service, U.S. District Court & most recently his Congressional honor as culture & arts bearer for the region.