In 2023, Sterling was part of the curatorial team for Virgil Ortiz: Revolution at Saddleback Art Gallery, collaborating directly with the artist. Mounted in the fall of 2023 as part of Professor Holmes’s Curatorial Practicum course, the exhibition examined Indigenous Futurism and the often-overlooked histories of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

Sterling and the cohort established the criteria for developing the checklist, selecting objects from the works produced during Ortiz’s artist residency. They conducted new research, identifying source imagery to accompany the sculptures from Ortiz’s oeuvre. In collaboration with Professor Holmes, they designed the installation and wrote the accompanying didactics.

She also led weekly exhibition tours throughout the exhibition’s run. Her catalogue essay, “Echoes of Resilience: Virgil Ortiz,” explores traditional narratives, incorporating historical remembrance with envisioned futures to challenge prevailing structures of colonial historiography.