INTERPRETING THE ANCIENT 
AND THE MODERN

MNA's Kiva Gallery Interactive Experience

Opening July 6, 2002

A new media-based interactive experience will be unveiled in MNA’s Kiva Gallery on July 5, 2002. Exhibit elements have been designed to accompany the modern Hopi kiva mural by artists Michael Kabotie and Delbridge Honanie that recreates ancient stories of emergence and traditional Hopi life. Most exciting among the new exhibit elements is the digital touch-screen interpretation that allows the visitor to experience a virtual tour of MNA’s modern kiva mural. 

Through the touch-screen, first-person accounts by the artists come alive and visitors can view a visual chronology of the making of the modern kiva mural. A display of the mural floats on the screen while various mural topics at hotspots prompt an interaction. When one of the mural topics—the emergence, the ancient church at Awatovi, finding the middle place, the rational side, or hope—is activated, it enlarges on the touch-screen, providing audio voice-over and scrolling text descriptions. 

Through the technology of digital video it is possible to simultaneously view a selection of video clips. Visitors enjoy a film on the historical and archaeological significance of kivas on the Colorado Plateau. They can also view a film highlighting the mural artists Kabotie (Lomawywesa, village of Shungopavy) and Honanie (Coochsiwukioma, village of Shungopavy). Internationally recognized masters of this ancient tradition, they discuss aspects of the “mythic journey mural”—their individual and cultural exploration of Pueblo artistic history. Large-format graphics display ogre characters, the ancient Awatovi kiva murals, katsina dolls, an old-style kiva, and Hopi ceremonies and life as it was in the early part of this century. 

The new exhibit elements are designed to further interpret the splendid mural tradition of Pueblo culture of the American Southwest. Frequently painted with elaborate scenes of ceremonial and legendary images, the ancient and sophisticated kiva images of the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries have profoundly influenced Hopi and Rio Grande Pueblo artists of today. 

The interpretation in the Kiva Gallery represents the first stages of exhibition work in a new partnership between MNA and Yavapai College’s Sedona Center for Arts and Technology. MNA’s new Manager of Exhibitions, Paul M. Legris, is working directly with Yavapai College’s General Manager, Jodie S. Filardo and Director of Digital Media Arts Program, Eduard Uzemickis. 

“The Kiva Gallery represents MNA’s greatest shrine to the Hopi people and the traditional cultures of the Colorado Plateau. It will serve as a model and launching point for further media-based interpretation for upcoming exhibitions, including MNA’s traveling exhibit Magic of the Painted Room: Indian Murals of the American Southwest,” states Legris. MNA’s Board of Trustees is confident that its new parnership with Yavapai College will foster greater outreach to potential audiences and members as MNA tackles its mission of bringing the Colorado Plateau to the world.