By Amy Scott, Vice President of Research and Interpretation, Marilyn B. and Calvin B. Gross Curator of Visual Arts

The year is 2180. Tahu, leader of the Blind Archers, dreams of five cyclones of fire tearing across the land. As they approach, she hears the voice of her ancestor Po’pay calling for aid. Jolted awake, she rushes to the Sirens—armorers who forge time-traveling portals, outfit resistance fighters, and arm the Recon Watchmen. 

So begins Virgil Ortiz’s epic ReVOlt 1680/2180: Sirens & Sikas, where futuristic heroes wielding superpowers align with Pueblo ancestors 500 years in the past to defend their sovereignty. Part of the Autry exhibition, Future Imaginaries: Indigenous Art, Fashion, Technology, Ortiz’s story unfolds through ceramics, film, and sound—a cinematic spectacle steeped in history. At its core stands the monumental Recon Watchman, a towering ceramic sentinel anchoring the installation. Ortiz’s work is more than a revolution told; it’s a revolution embodied, and one of ten groundbreaking artworks the Autry will preserve in its permanent collection after the exhibition closes in June 2026.

Each artwork extends the museum’s mission to link past to present and ignite visions of the future. Together, they highlight the forces shaping Indigenous art today—from science fiction to high fashion, cutting-edge technologies to ancestral knowledge. Chase Kahwinhut Earles, for instance, reimagines the Star Wars sage Yoda in Xi-nee’si II: Spiritual Leader Effigy Vessel (2022) using traditional Caddo firing techniques. Ryan Singer also riffs on Star Wars with They Have Both Coffees (2023), reframing the Tusken Raider as an Indigenous presence on the fictional desert planet Tatooine. The artist X conjures a stylish spaceship in his video installation Glitch in Perpetual Time (2024), which takes us for “one last ride,” as we party with cyborgs while Earth disintegrates below. A reptilian creature seems to snake through the oil-colored organza folds of Jontay Kahm’s Fossil 2.0 with Pebble Mask (2023) dress; Matagi Sorensen’s pierced bronze Gorget (2024) encircles the throat in a pierced, organic pattern inspired by the Arizona landscape of his childhood while Pat Pruitt’s Armorers of the Ice Infantry: Protectors of the Water (2024) features a cape of glittering titanium scales that flow dramatically down the back of the wearer.  

Other works are grounded in ecological knowledge shared over centuries, linking Indigenous histories to contemporary environments. Margaret Jacobs’s Old Growth Series (2024) fuses medicinal plants hand-forged in steel with spud wrenches, a nod to her ancestors, Mohawk ironworkers who built much of New York City’s iconic skyline. Mona Cliff’s Stratification (2024) layers beadwork onto wood grain, spotlighting the natural rhythms and growth patterns of forest ecosystems. Wally Dion’s shimmering Gold Star Quilt (2024), stitched together from recycled computer parts, reimagines electronic waste as a family heirloom. Similarly, Sonny Assu’s Tempest (2023) fuses the ancestral designs and formline patterns of Chilkat robe design with the 1981 arcade game of the same name, in which players shoot down alien invaders, turning regalia into a meditation on colonization and survival.

Collecting these works accomplishes multiple goals: honoring continuity with ancestral knowledge, art-making practices, and regalia traditions while amplifying Indigenous artists as present-day innovators and presenting Indigenous technologies as blueprints for more sustainable futures. As scholar Jason Edward Lewis writes in the exhibition catalogue, our “future imaginary” is how a culture envisions what lies ahead. Future Imaginaries is more than an exhibition, it’s a turning point, a promise not just to remember but to reimagine. By acquiring Indigenous Futurist works, the Autry isn’t just preserving culture; it’s investing in vision. Co-curator Amber-Dawn Bear Robe affirms this, stating that futurism in Indigenous art is about “reclaiming the narrative . . . structuring our Indigenous presence now and moving forward . . . putting ourselves in the future and reframing it from our perspective.”