Venutian Soldiers is a recently created (September 2019) ceramic jar created by the Cochiti potter Virgil Ortiz (b. 1969). Ortiz started as a ceramicist, and came to prominence in the 1990s as he started to re-shape figurative Cochiti pottery or monos figures that were created in the late 1890s in New Mexico in part due to the rise of the curio trade, and the presence of circus acts in the area (see RV-362-146). Ortiz in this manner established his reputation as one of a number of younger Pueblo potters in the Southwest who were changing traditional forms, and using more figurative and popular culture styles. This work quickly transformed into work that had sexuality as its key theme. Since the 1990s Ortiz has enjoyed success as a potter, and creator of fashion wear, working with such houses as Calvin Klein. <BR> In this series, Ortiz again plays with form and iconography in the context of traditional craft of ceramics. The form of Cochiti pottery is black on white, and this jar uses native clay, namely clay found in and around Cochiti Pueblo and collected and used by Cochiti potters (near Santa Fe, New Mexico). The pottery is decorated with slip with the black colour created by applying a liquid of wild spinach and the rag polishing giving the mat sheen, the piece is fired in a kiln (as opposed to traditionally fired with dried dung). Ortiz comes from a lineage of renowned potters denotative of the field of Cochiti pottery in the early to mid-20th century when pottery was at the height of recognition, and is related to Serafina Ortiz (two pieces from whom are currently in the NMVW collection, collected in the mid 1970s (RV-5715-2450) and mid1990s (RV-5910-4)).<BR> This vase is part of a series related to a long narrative that projects the Pueblo Revolt – the significant event in the history of New Mexico into the future. It thus represents a particular expression of Indigenous Futurism, and is a work in the series called Pueblo Revolt 1680/2180. <BR> The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 is the only uprising on North American soil that definitively, if temporarily, expelled the colonizing forces, in this instance the Spanish. The Spanish were early arrivals in Southwest North America, entering what is now New Mexico from 1539 and establishing their settlements from 1596, subsequently establishing a punitive and missionizing system on its indigenous inhabitants. In 1680s, Pueblo communities that had suffered under the Spanish colonial oppression rose up, with aid of Po’Pay who run from one Pueblo to another to gather a resistance. This led to the expelling of the Spanish and the murder of Franscican missionaries. They were united under a leader from what is now known as Okay Owingeh (formerly San Juan Pueblo). This popular resistance had a unifying role for 12-16 years in New Mexico until re-conquest. It is a deeply remembered history in the Southwest, is the subject of popular works (by artists such as Jason Garcia) and Ortiz describes it as the First American Revolution.<BR> The vase of an elegant traditional shape, and has four figures who are described as Venutian Soldiers, seen from the waist up, each is different with a gas mask. The upper rim is decorated in traditional foliate style, and the base is also decorated and signed. For a number of years Ortiz has been working on a series of ceramic and fashion items that propose a future for the Pueblo Revolt. This merges his mastery of traditional pottery, with cyber-punk, popular culture, Pueblo history and a discourse of indigenous sovereignty, resistance and futurism. This series replays the future uprising of indigenous people (the Venutians) and presents a series of characters within this narrative, Venutians are the soldiers that come to the aid of the hero Twins – in traditional stories both men, but in this incarnation a man (Kootz of the Runners) and a woman (Tahu of the Blind Archers). Indigenous futurism is an emerging field see through mostly visual and performance art, graphic novels, video art, and literature. It seeks to achieve two things. It projects traditional stories into the future, to signal their importance to indigenous life, and it that replays rather tired stereotypes of discovery that are part of traditional Science Fiction, by putting indigenous forces and actors on the other side of the ship, as resistors. It restores indigenous agency to the centre of the narratives. Indigenous Futurism in particular argues for a more cyclical understanding of time, here the Pueblo Revolt is replayed in 2180 in a post-apocalyptic world in which the forces are obliged for reasons of pollution to wear gas masks. In this narrative the Venutians as the indigenous people of the land and the warriors come to the aid of Po’Pay the leader who in 1680 organised, successfully, the Pueblo Revolt and has returned. In 2180, the tension between Pueblo and Spanish, is replayed as that between the Venutians and the Castillians. The Venutians are led by the twins and Kootz to find a hospitable land and “rebuild their traditions and ways of life on ancestral sacred lands”. In this narrative Indigenous resilience is important to the whole of humanity, not a good and evil narrative. <BR>