The HistoPads are back at the Historic New Orleans Collection — hand-held tablets that act as a portal to 360-degree views of the sites and events depicted in “American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition,” a touring exhibit making its world premiere in the French Quarter.
A product of the Paris-based Histovery technology company, the tech and its immersive storytelling will feel familiar to anyone who visited the exhibit “Notre-Dame de Paris,” which HNOC hosted in 2022-23.
In the new exhibit, visitors trigger each chapter at pedestals positioned in front of wall-sized images of key landmarks and moments of the insurrectionists’ story, from colonial Virginia to Boston to Philadelphia to Yorktown and all the way to the Gulf Coast, where Spanish Gov. 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.
(The battlin’ governor is having a French Quarter moment. For completists and Gálvez fanboys and fangirls, the Cabildo, just a few steps away toward Jackson Square, is concurrently playing host to the new exhibit “Gálvez and Louisiana in the American Revolution.”)
Localizing the story
The Gálvez chapter of “American Revolution” was HNOC’s contribution to a yearslong collaborative process with Histovery that followed the successful “Notre-Dame” exhibit.
“They reached out to us … asking if we would be interested in possibly hosting a new project they were developing then about the American Revolution,” said Jason Wiese, HNOC’s chief curator, during a recent walk-through of the exhibit. “… They sent us their prospectus, and we read through it and we pointed out, ‘Hey, there’s no mention of Bernardo de Gálvez or the experiences of the Gulf South during the Revolutionary War period.’ And they said, ‘Well, we don’t know anything about that. What’s that about?’
“So, to their credit, they asked us if we would be willing to work with them to develop an additional chapter of the exhibition devoted to Gálvez and the people of Louisiana.”
For the Histovery project, Wiese teamed with Kathleen DuVal, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of “Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution,” which “really focuses on the margins of the Revolutionary War, particularly related to the Gulf Coast,” Wiese said. “People of color, women, Indigenous people — so really taking an interesting perspective.”
A couple of HNOC holdings make their way into the Gálvez chapter because of the collaboration, including a portrait of Gálvez and a patent of nobility awarded to him by Spain’s Charles III (which completists will recognize as the cover image for the catalog that accompanied the 2022-23 HNOC exhibit “Spanish New Orleans and the Caribbean”).
And so, HNOC’s storytelling expertise and collection items augment the augmented exhibition that will tour through 2031 and touch all 50 U.S. states.
The visitor experience
Admission is free, but timed tickets are required to ensure everybody has enough space to spin through the chapters. Tap touchpoints inside each scene to leap to character profiles, close-ups of objects of interest, fly-through animations and slider-style controls that show period views of landmarks and how they appear today.
The tablet text is offered in English, Spanish, French and German. For younger visitors, a virtual scavenger hunt for period objects is embedded in many of the chapters.
“I think each chapter is just kind of a little world unto itself, and they’re all connected,” Wiese said. “It’s a sequence that’s more or less chronological. It’s not absolutely necessary that you visit everything in order. You can explore it however you wish.’”
The HistoPad can be hard to put down. And the story’s plenty compelling, too.
“One of our Visitor Services staff was telling me that a couple was in the exhibit this morning,” Wiese said. “The husband stayed in here for two hours. The wife was just sitting out there, bored out of her mind. She went to the shop. She went to see some other exhibits, but he was in here for two hours.”
“American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition” will be at the HNOC through Jan. 17, 2027.
Museum calendar
- At 6:30 p.m. Tuesday (April 7), the National WWII Museum will host a Dinner with a Curator event, “Illustrating Freedom: Norman Rockwell and the American Ideal.” More: nationalww2museum.org.
- A Gallier Gathering at 6 p.m. Wednesday (April 8) will feature Louisiana Poet Laureate Gina Ferrara presenting “Here and Someplace Else,” an exploration of place through poetry. More: hgghh.org.
- An opening reception for the changing exhibit “Come Back Fighting: USS New Orleans at War” will take place at 5 p.m. Thursday (April 9) at the National WWII Museum. A 6 p.m. presentation about the exhibit will stream online for free. More: nationalww2museum.org.
- The Friends of the Cabildo Second Thursday Lecture Series will present Melissa Daggett discussing her upcoming book, “Eugène and Eulalie: A Family Saga of Love, Race, and Property in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans,” at 6 p.m. Thursday (April 9). The free event will be offered online. More: friendsofthecabildo.org.
- At 3 p.m. Thursday (April 9), the Whitney Plantation will present a free virtual screening of the documentary “My Father’s Name.” A panel discussion will follow. More: whitneyplantation.org.
- The Historic New Orleans Collection will host a free Community Day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday (April 11) featuring music highlighting themes from current exhibits. More: hnoc.org.
- The Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane’s annual Creative Connections event will take place at 5:30 p.m. April 15. More: newcombartmuseum.tulane.edu.
- The Historic New Orleans Collection will present a free screening of Ned Sublette’s documentary “Tierra Sagrada” at 2 p.m. April 16. A Q&A with the filmmaker will follow the screening. More: hnoc.org.
- The new exhibit “The First Piano Professors and the Lost Music of Early New Orleans” opens April 16 at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. More: louisianastatemuseum.org.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nola.com ’
