At the Birch Aquarium, beside the towering kelp forest exhibit, OurWorlds unveiled an immersive Kumeyaay language experience developed in close collaboration with language knowledge keepers including Stanley Rodriguez, Priscilla Sawah, and Nicholas Smith. Together, we explored how immersive environments can support language revitalization by emphasizing beauty, scale, and time as essential conditions for learning. By surrounding visitors with spoken Kumeyaay words, large-scale visual storytelling, and moments of quiet reflection, we aim to recreate the kinds of meaningful encounters through which language is traditionally passed down. This installation builds on our parallel language exhibition at the San Diego Central Library, where we continue to test how public spaces can become sites of cultural reconnection and learning. We are energized by the response so far and see this as only the beginning. These early exhibitions point toward a larger vision for how immersive technology can help Indigenous languages not only survive, but be experienced as living, evolving worlds.

In partnership with the San Diego Central Library, the City of San Diego, and World Design Capital San Diego–Tijuana, OurWorlds helped illuminate the living presence of the four Indigenous languages of this region—the languages of the Kumeyaay, Kuupangaxwichem, Payòmkawichum, and Cahuilla nations. Centering the voices of children, this project uplifts the next generation of speakers as carriers of cultural continuity, demonstrating that these languages are not only ancestral, but future-facing. Working alongside dedicated language keepers and educators including Elijah Duro, Diana Duro, Faith Morreo, Rosy Aranda, Stanley Rodriguez, Priscilla Sawah, Cathleen Chilcote, and Ed McEnespy, we created an experience grounded in respect, collaboration, and cultural stewardship. Each word shared through this work carries generations of ecological knowledge, relationships to land, and ways of understanding community and responsibility. In listening closely, we are reminded that these languages hold profound teachings about resilience, reciprocity, and belonging—wisdom that offers guidance not only for Indigenous communities, but for all who call this place home.

As part of Getty’s landmark PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative, OurWorlds was honored to participate in the Embodied Pacific exhibition series, contributing three interconnected exhibitions across San Diego: Extraction at the Qualcomm Institute, Seaways at Gallery SME, and WeShow at Kosay Kumeyaay Market. Across these venues, we presented work exploring Indigenous futures through emerging media, including augmented reality language activations, volumetric video portraits, projection mapping installations, and holographic storytelling. Together, these exhibitions demonstrated how advanced technologies can serve cultural continuity, community memory, and new forms of storytelling grounded in place. OurWorlds was also featured on the front page of the Getty PST website, representing hundreds of participating artists and cultural practitioners across Southern California. This recognition reflects our ongoing commitment to positioning Indigenous knowledge not at the margins of innovation, but at its center—showing how technology can be guided by cultural responsibility, intergenerational learning, and relationships to land and community.