{"id":16599,"date":"2025-10-14T21:34:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T21:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/10\/14\/indigenous-artists-reclaim-history-with-ar-in-the-mets-american-wing\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T21:34:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T21:34:18","slug":"indigenous-artists-reclaim-history-with-ar-in-the-mets-american-wing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/10\/14\/indigenous-artists-reclaim-history-with-ar-in-the-mets-american-wing\/","title":{"rendered":"Indigenous Artists Reclaim History With AR in the Met\u2019s American Wing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Cannupa Hanska Luger\u2019s Mid\u00e9egaadi: Fire<\/em> (2021-ongoing) on Thomas Cole\u2019s View on the Catskills \u2013 Early Autumn<\/em>. Courtesy of the artist and Amplifier<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On October 13, a group of Indigenous artists took over the American collection at New York\u2019s Metropolitan Museum of Art to emphasize the need to elevate alternative narratives on Columbus Day\u2014now widely observed as Indigenous Peoples\u2019 Day\u2014as the holiday\u2019s name and meaning face renewed national scrutiny.<\/p>\n

\n<\/section>\n

Yesterday, Amplifier\u2014a nonprofit design lab known for using art and media to shift culture and amplify social movements\u2014unveiled ENCODED: Change the Story, Change the Future<\/i>, an augmented reality intervention that temporarily transformed the Met\u2019s American Wing. Installed directly within the museum\u2019s canonical collection of American art, the project brought Indigenous creativity quite literally into the frame, using the imaginative potential of 3D technology to assert a counter-narrative long erased from official histories.<\/p>\n

Through AR overlays and immersive sound, ENCODED<\/i> uses digital art and emerging technologies to activate existing paintings and sculptures in real time\u2014to reclaim space, expand historical narratives and open new pathways for confrontation and dialogue about the meanings and values embedded in the collection itself\u2014all as the American Wing marks its 100th anniversary.<\/p>\n

By scanning a QR code, visitors embark on a self-guided tour that reveals another kind of story\u2014one layered alongside and between the narratives depicted in historic paintings and sculptures. These Indigenous interventions coexist with Eurocentric portrayals and romantically idealized landscapes, recognizing and celebrating two distinct roots of American ancestry. ENCODED<\/i> is accessible through the Amplifier website<\/a> inside the Met galleries and anywhere in the world through December 31, 2025.<\/p>\n

\"A\"A
Nicholas Galanin\u2019s NEVER FORGET Valley of Wyoming<\/em> (2021) on Jasper Francis Cropsey\u2018s\u00a0Valley of Wyoming<\/em>. Courtesy of the artist and Amplifier<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Conceived by an anonymous Indigenous donor and co-curated by Tracy Ren\u00e9e Rector in collaboration with Amplifier, the project features seventeen Indigenous artists living across Turtle Island (also known as North America). Among them are some of the most recognized names in contemporary Indigenous art, including Cannupa Hanska Luger<\/a> and Nicholas Galanin<\/a>, along with Amelia Winger-Bearskin<\/a>, Bear Fox<\/a>, Bird x Bird<\/a>, Cass Gardiner<\/a>, Demian Din\u00e9Yazhi\u2019, Jarrette Werk<\/a>, Jeremy Dennis<\/a>, Josu\u00e9 Rivas, Katsitsionni Fox<\/a>, Lokotah Sanborn<\/a>, Mali Obomsawin<\/a>, Mer Young<\/a>, Priscilla Dobler Dzul<\/a>, Flechas<\/a> and Skawennati<\/a>, each engaging with the collection through their own vision and voice.<\/p>\n

The title ENCODED<\/i> came from consulting with Shinnecock Nation tribal member and featured artist Jeremy Dennis, Tracy Ren\u00e9e Rector tells Observer. \u201cWe were discussing the significance of oyster shells, shell middens and uncovering the layered histories of this region that are often unseen or at least not immediately apparent to many. This felt like an excellent way to frame the intention of the show, Native history and Lenspehoking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thinking through the significance of this collective show in Lenapehoking, shell middens emerged as a metaphor for the many layers of history and the act of uncovering buried narratives, Rector adds. \u201cAs many creatives are experiencing a radical shift in a sense of safety and belonging in these political times, a number of the artists were excited to contribute to this unsanctioned show, expressing a sense of freedom in unapologetically taking up space as a community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cannupa Hanska Luger\u2019s intervention, for instance, overlays animated Indigenous figures who dance freely and joyfully across Thomas Cole\u2019s serene Catskill landscape, disrupting its pastoral stillness and reclaiming their vital presence within the idealized scene. \u201cThe works that I\u2019m presenting are an intervention on a narrative that American art, and the American art canon, has maintained, which is that the landscape of North America was void of population,\u201d the artist said in a statement. To him, seeing these works dancing across these idealized landscapes can prompt viewers to see history as a narrative frozen in time, while culture remains alive and vibrant despite centuries of oppression. \u201cTheir dancing is a symbolic representation of a culture that thrives and survives the static aspect of history,\u201d he said. \u201cHaving them move on these static paintings, I think, reinforces the idea of our survivors and our continued existence under the oppressive weight of being omitted from history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Painted largely in the 19th Century by artists of the Hudson River School and the Luminist movement, most of the landscapes in the Met\u2019s American Wing are vast, luminous and idealized\u2014expansive vistas of wilderness, lush nature, soaring mountains, glowing skies and tranquil waters that draw from the Classical idyll and the pastoral tradition to celebrate a presumed harmony between humans and nature. However, viewed through a contemporary lens, these works are not simply scenic; they reflect and promote a national myth: America as promised land, fertile new soil, destiny\u2014as if the land were untouched and unpopulated. This denies the reality that Indigenous people had long lived there, building societies, caring for the land and maintaining a far more symbiotic and sustainable relationship with it. Behind the poetic illusion lies a propagandistic message, an ideology only recently challenged for erasing an entire side of American history\u2014one that Columbus Day (or Indigenous Peoples\u2019 Day) also calls into question.<\/p>\n

Notably, ENCODED<\/i> is not conceived as a protest, nor as the kind of entertaining spectacle AR is often reduced to. Instead, it operates as a deliberate act of cultural negotiation\u2014a creative strategy in which artists harness new technologies to reassert Indigenous presence within American art and history. Rather than overwriting or erasing what already exists, the project insists on acknowledging multiple voices, contributions and perspectives within the nation\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

\u201cChange the Story, Change the Future,\u201d reads the ENCODED<\/i> website\u2014a powerful and timely reminder that without full awareness of a country\u2019s history, it becomes nearly impossible to imagine, let alone build, a future capable of embracing the true richness of its heritage, identity and potential.<\/p>\n

\"A\"A
Priscilla Dobler Dzul\u2019s Future Cosmologies: The Regeneration of Maya Mythologies<\/em> (2023) on Thomas Crawford\u2019s Mexican Girl Dying<\/em>. Courtesy of Amplifier<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Indigenous<\/p><\/div>\n