Unsanctioned Indigenous art intervention at The Met’s American Wing
Amplifier, a nonprofit design lab building art and media campaigns to shift culture and amplify movements, debuted “ENCODED: Change the Story, Change the Future,” a first-of-its-kind unsanctioned Indigenous art intervention within the American Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Launching on Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2025 (October 13), this augmented reality (AR) installation transforms the American Wing into a space where Indigenous presence, creativity, and stories take center stage.
Funded by an anonymous Indigenous donor and co-curated by Tracy Renée Rector in collaboration with Amplifier, “ENCODED” features the work of seventeen Indigenous artists living across Turtle Island, also known as North America. Using augmented reality and immersive sound, these works engage directly with the museum’s permanent collection of paintings and sculptures, reclaiming space, expanding narratives, and opening conversations as the American Wing marks its 100th anniversary.
“ENCODED” is accessible through the Amplifier website both inside of the MET galleries or anywhere in the world, October 13 through December 31, 2025.
“As a multicultural team committed to uplifting artists and marginalized peoples, we honor the power and beauty of coming together in solidarity,” Tracy Renée Rector said. “In this spirit, we worked hard to expand the narratives of these lands and uplift the voices of the first inhabitants of this continent. We believe that everyone benefits from truth in history, the sharing of diverse perspectives, and the flourishing of cultural sovereignty.”
“ENCODED” features works by Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Bear Fox, Bird x Bird, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Cass Gardiner, Demian DinéYazhi’, Jarrette Werk, Jeremy Dennis, Josué Rivas, Katsitsionni Fox, Lokotah Sanborn, Mali Obomsawin, Mer Young, Nicholas Galanin, Priscilla Dobler Dzul, Flechas, and Skawennati, each engaging the collection with their unique vision and voice.
“The works that I’m 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,” states artist Cannupa Hanska Luger. “When I see these works dance across these landscapes, I think of history being a narrative that’s frozen in time, and culture being something that’s alive and continues, and their dancing is a symbolic representation of a culture that thrives and survives the static aspect of history. Having them move on these static paintings, I think, reinforces the idea of our survivants and our continued existence under the oppressive weight of being omitted from history.”
“ENCODED” is a celebration: an invitation to join a ceremonial act of remembering and reimagining. Through 3D digital technologies, the exhibition challenges past propaganda embedded in American art history to open space for dialogue about truth, history, and representation today.
“ENCODED” is not a protest, or a spectacle; it is a celebration and a reassertion of Indigenous presence in one of the grandest stages of American art and history. Audiences are invited to scan the QR code, to access a self-guided digital exhibition of historic paintings and sculptures reframed by Indigenous counter-narratives, an overlay that does not erase but expands, asking whose stories are told in America’s cultural institutions, and how they change when Indigenous artists take over the frame.
