Rewriting the MET’s American Wing: Indigenous Artists Use Augmented Reality to Reclaim History

Seventeen Indigenous artists quietly launched ENCODED: Change the Story, Change the Future, an augmented reality (AR) project that overlays their own works onto 19th-century landscape paintings at The Met. Using a smartphone camera, visitors can now see figures, symbols, and messages from Native artists appear within the museum’s historic galleries — a poetic act of reclamation that fuses tradition, technology, and presence.