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 a linear narrative, however by 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 recollects 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’ll vanish when the exhibition ends.
As a gap gesture, “Halchíí” indicators the significance of shut trying throughout the 34 works within the present, which embody lithographs, Mace’s camera-based and camera-less pictures, comparable 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 produced from sheep cover, jingle cones, and classic Italian glass beads, whereas the latter makes use of the identical supplies, substituting deer cover for sheep. Invisibly suspended as if floating, every cover 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 didactics, however by the works’ presence and kind. As a Diné asdzání (Navajo lady), I used to be attuned to the usage of sheep and deer hides — supplies that talk in another way throughout Indigenous geographies. Sheep are central to Diné lifeways within the Southwest, whereas for me, deer cover evoked connections to our Athabaskan family throughout the Southwest and into Canada. Mace realized tanning strategies each just about and in particular person, 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 residence and ceremonial house. Viewers can stroll beneath a mixture of photographs 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 an alternative, 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 kinds, however highlights the endurance of textile practices in dialogue. It embodies the exhibition’s purpose not solely to specific Ałk’idáá as a philosophy of layered time, but additionally invitations us to think about a geography of Indigenous expertise that stretches throughout borders — from america Southwest to British Columbia to Oaxaca. The exhibition unfolds as a cartography of connection, the place reminiscence and materials observe ripple throughout lands by 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. Identified within the Diné Bizaad (Navajo Language) as Hwéeldi, or “place of suffering,” it’s situated in what’s now japanese New Mexico. Hwéeldi is usually left unstated in Diné communities — too painful, too heavy — however right here, Mace confronts it by 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 moderately 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 consists of 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. Moderately than counting on archival photographs 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 approach 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. After I first encountered it, I ended in my tracks. The mural suggests motion and water — like dye dispersing in a shower. Every is produced from supplies that carry long-standing roles in Diné textile practices and stay in use as we speak: “Hadootł’izh” with indigo and “Halchíí ” with cochineal. The reference to textiles isn’t spelled out within the wall textual content, however 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 wrestle that continues as we speak, as communities on the Navajo Nation nonetheless face systemic limitations to water rights. The prints are designed to darken with gentle publicity over time, finally 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 largely in Diné Bizaad, the tales of elders — these pictured within the beforehand talked about hogan set up — provide 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 pay attention, like one would possibly do in a household residence 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 selections and her wide-ranging observe, DAHODIYINII – SACRED PLACES exhibits how Indigenous thought and modern exhibition-making can co-exist with out compromise. Her observe is intentional and sluggish — the beadwork sq. in “Adinídíín” took 10 years. I ponder … would a non-Diné viewer catch the total story of those works? Possibly not. However this present doesn’t cater to non-Diné audiences, and that’s a part of its energy. 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 vital occurs: The work breathes. Does refusing to clarify each element of a piece by an Indigenous artist provide a form of freedom — for the work and for us?
Mace’s dedication — to her folks, supplies, and course of — bleeds by each nook of the five-gallery exhibition like dye by wool. DAHODIYINII – SACRED PLACES offers with painful historical past, however 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 Could 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 Could 19. The exhibition was curated by Brandee Caoba.
