“American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition”

“American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition” has opened at the Historic New Orleans Collection and will remain on view through January 17, 2027. From the French technology company Histovery, the exhibition uses hand-held tablet computers to open up 360-degree views of the sites, events, and historical figures who fought for America’s independence 250 years ago. 

The HistoPads, as they’re called, are triggered at pedestals placed in front of several large-scale lightboxes that introduce each sequence, colonial Virginia to Boston to Philadelphia to Yorktown and so on.  

The exhibit will feel familiar to anyone who visited the Histovery exhibit “Notre-Dame de Paris” when it visited HNOC a couple of years ago. 

This is the exhibit’s US debut engagement, and it will tour for many years to many states. 

I recently visited the exhibit with Jason Wiese, HNOC’s chief curator, to discuss the exhibit and HNOC’s contribution to it, a concluding “chapter” that details how Spanish Governor Bernardo de Gálvez directed a multicultural militia of free men of color, Acadians, Indigenous volunteers, and Spanish regulars to a series of victories against the British along the Gulf Coast. 

Print and podcast coverage are here and here. Images are below.