SANTA FE — In DAHODIYINII – SACRED PLACES, Dakota Mace’s first solo museum exhibition at SITE Santa Fe, the Diné artist confronts genocide, grief, and inequality not by means of a linear narrative, however by means of a framework of Ałk’idáá: “events stacked up through time.” In prolonged exhibition labels, she writes: “ … in Diné philosophy, time is not a line; it’s a series of layers, movements unfolding simultaneously. The past isn’t something distant or detached — it’s woven into the present, and the present is braided with the future.” Mace confronts these layers head-on, investigating not simply what’s seen on the floor however the deeper strata of reminiscence and Diné expertise.
The exhibition opens with “Halchíí (Red area)” (2024), an earthen wall mural made in collaboration with Keyah Henry (Diné), which remembers deep pink watercolor. It roots viewers in Land as each witness and archive. Composed of cochineal pigment, ash, corn pollen, and earth gathered from Diné Bikéyah (Navajo homelands), the work is site-specific and impermanent — adhered on to the gallery wall, it’s going to vanish when the exhibition ends.
As a gap gesture, “Halchíí” alerts the significance of shut trying throughout the 34 works within the present, which embrace lithographs, Mace’s camera-based and camera-less pictures, akin to cyanotypes and chemigrams; beadwork; tanned hides; a collaborative textile piece; and a sound set up. Spanning 5 galleries organized round themes of “Land,” “Memory,” and “Stars,” the exhibition displays Mace’s Diné lens, the place homelands, reminiscence, and language are woven tightly collectively.
Set up view of Dakota Mace, “Chahash’oh (Shadow)” and “Adinídíín (Light)” (each 2024)
“Chahash’oh (Shadow)” and “Adinídíín (Light)” (each 2024) within the subsequent room additional draw us into the interaction between Diné philosophy and Mace’s meticulous materials exploration. The previous is constructed from sheep disguise, jingle cones, and classic Italian glass beads, whereas the latter makes use of the identical supplies, substituting deer disguise for sheep. Invisibly suspended as if floating, every disguise is adorned with beadwork and strings that fall in intentionally organized strains. Whereas distinct in composition, the works exist in dialog, not opposition. They information us to think about the Diné philosophy of Hózhó (roughly translated to “balance”) not by means of didactics, however by means of the works’ presence and kind. As a Diné asdzání (Navajo lady), I used to be attuned to using sheep and deer hides — supplies that talk otherwise throughout Indigenous geographies. Sheep are central to Diné lifeways within the Southwest, whereas for me, deer disguise evoked connections to our Athabaskan relations throughout the Southwest and into Canada. Mace realized tanning strategies each just about and in individual, learning with Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics in British Columbia and Wisconsin. These resonances stretch throughout land and lineage, embedded within the pores and skin of the work.
Within the subsequent room, an set up of hanging digital archival prints mirrors the construction of a hexagonal hogan, the Diné dwelling and ceremonial house. Viewers can stroll beneath a mixture of photos of Mace’s members of the family and pictures of Diné elders, immersed in an set up that honors each kinship and ancestral presence. The one wall within the hexagon formation shows the singular textile work within the exhibition: “Shared Histories” (2021), a collaboration between Mace, weaver Tito Mendoza (Zapotec), and the Textile Arts Heart of Madison’s Ladies’s Volunteer Collective. The minimalist design — three daring stripes, with a pink heart stripe embroidered by the collective in a constellation-like sample with pink beads — eschews the “eye-dazzling” geometry typically anticipated of each Diné and Zapotec weaving. As a substitute, it quietly asserts a shared story. For Mace, this work displays an Indigenous-to-Indigenous relationship grounded in respect, not extraction. It doesn’t copy or mix types, however highlights the endurance of textile practices in dialogue. It embodies the exhibition’s purpose not solely to precise Ałk’idáá as a philosophy of layered time, but in addition invitations us to think about a geography of Indigenous expertise that stretches throughout borders — from the USA Southwest to British Columbia to Oaxaca. The exhibition unfolds as a cartography of connection, the place reminiscence and materials apply ripple throughout lands by means of Indigenous kinship, collaboration, and continuity.
Set up view of Dakota Mace, DAHODIYINII – SACRED PLACES
The previous installations set the stage for “Dahodiyinii (Sacred Places)” (2021), the namesake and coronary heart of the exhibition. Between 1863 and 1866, the US authorities forcibly marched greater than 10,000 Diné folks to Bosque Redondo, a jail camp at Fort Sumner. Recognized within the Diné Bizaad (Navajo Language) as Hwéeldi, or “place of suffering,” it’s positioned in what’s now jap New Mexico. Hwéeldi is usually left unstated in Diné communities — too painful, too heavy — however right here, Mace confronts it by means of land, gentle, and materials reminiscence. Departing from standard pictures, she created cyanotypes on 5 x 7-inch (~13 x 18 cm) paper, every dyed with cochineal and uncovered utilizing earth gathered from websites alongside the path to Hwéeldi. This camera-less course of turns into a instrument for honoring relatively than documenting: Mace positioned every paper immediately on the bottom, permitting wind, water, sand, and rock to go away their hint. The ultimate set up contains 1,674 prints — one for every day between the primary Diné give up and the eventual signing of the Bosque Redondo Treaty in 1868. The buildup of prints — textural, tonal, and marked by presence — conveys each overwhelming loss and a refusal to overlook. Somewhat than counting on archival photos of Diné from the 1860s, the work invitations viewers right into a meditative house the place the land each makes the picture and bears witness. Of their quiet, intimately sized kinds, they kind a collective wall of reminiscence. In honoring the unnamed and unrecognized, the set up turns into the emotional origin level of the exhibition — layering days, grief, and resilience into an enormous wall hued in variations of pink, suggesting each mourning and survival.
The ultimate gallery closes the exhibition in the identical means it started — with earth. “Hadootł’izh (Blue Area)” (2024), one other mural made in collaboration with Keyah Henry (Diné) from indigo pigment, ash, corn pollen, and gallons of earth gathered from Diné Bikéyah, evokes each cycle and return. Once I first encountered it, I ended in my tracks. The mural suggests motion and water — like dye dispersing in a shower. Every is constructed from supplies that carry long-standing roles in Diné textile practices and stay in use at present: “Hadootł’izh” with indigo and “Halchíí ” with cochineal. The reference to textiles isn’t spelled out within the wall textual content, nevertheless it’s there — a quiet, assured refusal to over-explain. Put in beside the mural is “Níłtsą́ Bi’áád (Gentle Rain)” (2023), composed of 64 cyanotypes affixed with churro wool. Made on-site by Mace at Hwéeldi as rain fell, the work displays on the U.S. authorities’s restriction of Diné entry to drinkable water throughout their imprisonment within the 1860s — a battle that continues at present, as communities on the Navajo Nation nonetheless face systemic limitations to water rights. The prints are designed to darken with gentle publicity over time, ultimately fading into reminiscence, just like the rain itself. Overhead, viewers don’t hear the sound of rain however one thing equally essential: The audio set up “Badahani (Their Stories)” (2024) fills the room. Recorded principally in Diné Bizaad, the tales of elders — these pictured within the beforehand talked about hogan set up — supply a deep sense of kinship; there are not any translations into English. A chair is positioned beneath the audio system, inviting guests to sit down and hear, like one may do in a household dwelling the place tales are handed down throughout generations.
Set up view of works from Dakota Mace, Dahodiyinii (Sacred Locations) sequence (2021), digital archive print
Element view of works from Dakota Mace, Dahodiyinii (Sacred Locations) sequence (2021), digital archive print
Dakota Mace’s exhibition doesn’t simply exhibit Diné philosophy — it enacts it. By considerate curatorial decisions and her wide-ranging apply, DAHODIYINII – SACRED PLACES exhibits how Indigenous thought and modern exhibition-making can co-exist with out compromise. Her apply is intentional and gradual — the beadwork sq. in “Adinídíín” took 10 years. I’m wondering … would a non-Diné viewer catch the complete story of those works? Perhaps not. However this present doesn’t cater to non-Diné audiences, and that’s a part of its power. It doesn’t over-explain or flatten its that means. Diné Bizaad is prioritized over English. Exhibition textual content is sparse. And in that absence, one thing essential occurs: The work breathes. Does refusing to elucidate each element of a piece by an Indigenous artist supply a type of freedom — for the work and for us?
Mace’s dedication — to her folks, supplies, and course of — bleeds by means of each nook of the five-gallery exhibition like dye by means of wool. DAHODIYINII – SACRED PLACES offers with painful historical past, nevertheless it doesn’t sensationalize or simplify. The work invitations presence, not consumption. Although the present is not going to journey after it closes at SITE Santa Fe on Might 19, that impermanence echoes Mace’s embrace of ephemerality. It’s a vital contribution to modern Indigenous artwork discourse. I extremely suggest Mace’s recorded dialog with artist Porfirio Gutiérrez (Zapotec), offered as a part of the exhibition programming — a dialogue that displays the care, complexity, and kinship on the coronary heart of this work.
Dakota Mace with Keyah Henry (Diné), “Hadootł’izh (Blue Area)” (2024) mural 
Element views of Dakota Mace with Keyah Henry (Diné), “Hadootł’izh (Blue Area)” (2024) mural
Dakota Mace, “Helen Nez-Diné Elder Dahodiyinii” (2021), digital archival print
Element (left) and set up (proper) views of Dakota Mace & Tito Mendoza, “Shared Histories” (2021), cotton, wool, and glass beadwork
Dakota Mace, “Joe Mace-Diné Elder Dahodiyinii” (2021)
Left: Set up view of Dakota Mace, DAHODIYINII – SACRED PLACES; proper: Dakota Mace, “Tsin Bigaan (Branches)” (2023), cyanotype, cottonwood bark tannin, walnut dye, chemical dye, and churro wool
Dakota Mace, “Béésh Łigaii I (Silver I)” (2022), 40 chemigrams
Left: Dakota Mace, “Tse (Stones)” (2023), cyanotype, cochineal, chemical dye, and churro wool
Dakota Mace, “Tséyi (Among the Canyons)” (2023), archival pigment print with glass beadwork
Set up view of Dakota Mace, DAHODIYINII – SACRED PLACES
Set up view of Dakota Mace, DAHODIYINII – SACRED PLACES
Dakota Mace: DAHODIYINII – SACRED PLACES continues at SITE Santa Fe (1606 Paseo De Peralta, Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico) by means of Might 19. The exhibition was curated by Brandee Caoba.
