About the Art:

Opening on Indigenous People’s Day fall 2025 after years of planning and collaborating, the Augmented Reality (AR) exhibition ENCODED took over the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. It was unsanctioned: the museum did not know it was coming. As an art historian transitioning scholarly focus from the Italian Renaissance to Native American contemporary art, I had to go see it. Little did I know I would later write and publish a review of the show in SECAC’s Art Inquiries annual journal. My analysis of the unauthorized exhibition elaborates upon a handful of the AR overlays accessible through a free mobile app. The groundbreaking exhibition comprised of twenty-six works by seventeen different Native American artists who sought to reframe discussions of colonial American artworks in the collection—many from the 19th century—to an Indigenous perspective. ENCODED’s “Indigenization” focused on themes such as land back and rematriation, a term used to describe a revision of patriarchal Euro-American viewpoints that center upon pre-colonial Native ways of thinking. Many Indigenous cultures in the Americas at the time of first European contact were matrilineal and matriarchal; my review, too, is matrifocal, highlighting several key female figures. ENCODED was incredible to experience firsthand – I would like to thank CECA for support to see it in person. Presently, my review is in the hands of the Art Inquires copy editor with final proofs expected in September and publication later this fall. I am grateful for the opportunity to relay ENCODED’s narrative at the New Gallery. Please take an unsanctioned copy, read more about this innovative Indigenous intervention at the Met, and share what you learned with someone.