The year is 2180 and New Mexico pueblos are under attack by Spanish invaders. Two gliders in metallic combat gear — Omtua and Catua — are flying to each pueblo carrying coded messages to share the news: There’s going to be an uprising.
That’s the premise of "Virgil Ortiz Revolt 1680/2180: Runners + Gliders." It’s a new exhibit at History Colorado in Denver that blends Indigenous futurism, augmented reality, ancestral Puebloan pottery, photography and fashion to tell the true story of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
“It's America's first revolution, but it's not called that or taught that because of the bloodshed,” Virgil Ortiz, an award-winning Cochiti Pueblo artist who led the project, said.
Ortiz's ancestors told him about Po’Pay, a Tewa religious leader, who was arrested by Spanish invaders for performing religious rituals. When he was released, he organized runners to coordinate the uprising in secret by using knotted deer hide.
“At each pueblo, they dropped off a knotted cord to all the leaders and they instructed them to untie one knot every morning,” Ortiz said. “So on the day when the last knot was untied, then all the people rose up and pushed out the invaders.”
The revolt kept the Spanish out of what is now northern New Mexico for 12 years. Historians call it the most successful Indigenous uprising in North American history, even though it has rarely been taught in schools, according to Ortiz.
Virgil Ortiz's "Recon Watchmen" pottery piece sits inside his exhibit at History Colorado. It joins a collection of pottery in the exhibit that is more than 800 years old.
His exhibit seeks to bring new awareness to the revolt's historical significance as well as his people's perseverance and enduring relevance.
“I'm trying to educate globally about what happened to our people, the atrocities of bloodshed, and eventually the peace that came after it, but using art,” Ortiz said.
To appeal to a younger audience and embrace his passions, Ortiz decided to envision the Pueblo Revolt happening simultaneously in two different time dimensions: 1680 and 2180.
“That allows me to really bring in sci-fi characters, which I love,” Ortiz said. “I was hugely affected and really inspired by Star Wars when I was 6 years old.”
The exhibit creates a slipstream effect, where past, present and future events collapse into one. Viewers see more than 800-year-old Puebloan pottery next to Ortiz’s present day pottery beside futuristic portrayals of the original runners.
Wren Batista, a Santa Fe resident, modeled for the exhibit.
“I've got this awesome silver crocodile skin-patterned chest piece on, with a spiky sort of headdress coming out of the back,” Batista said, describing one of his photos at the front entrance of the exhibit. “It's all very sci-fi and transformative.”
The exhibit employs augmented reality via QR codes. When a visitor scans an artifact with their phone's camera, it takes them to Instagram. A filter pops up, which, when hovered over the art piece, causes an effect to appear, like sparks flying off of the image or a superimposed ancestral mask.