2001-2011, kwe’é díí shighan ńt’ę́ę́, i wonder what this Key opens now? is a durational performance by artist Eric-Paul Riege responding to his immersive, mixed-media installation, a home for Her, on view at the Small Arms Inspection Building. The installation is composed of a series of looms and blankets that together form the outline of the artist’s childhood home, presented alongside weavings created by Eric-Paul with the women of his family. Dressed in intricately-designed, hand-fabricated regalia, he activates elements of the installation and the site as a whole through measured movement, interaction, and moments of stillness—a slow activation during the full opening hours of the space as visitors come and go. Rooted in Hózhó-Diné philosophy and cosmology, both the performance and the work it responds to celebrate ancestral knowledge, spirituality, and familial interconnectedness beyond boundaries of life and death.
Image credit: Eric-Paul Riege, 2001-2011, kwe’é díí shighan ńt’ę́ę́, i wonder what this Key opens now?, March 27, 2022. Program held at Small Arms Inspection Building as part of Toronto Biennial of Art 2022. Photography: Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.
In Person
Small Arms Inspection Building
1352 Lakeshore Road East
Mississauga ON
L5E 1E9
March 27
Bio
Eric-Paul Riege (Diné, born in 1994, Na’nízhoozhí / Gallup, USA) creates woven sculptures, wearable art and durational performances that celebrate his existence and spirituality. These works express his philosophies of sanctuary, harmony and interconnection. Also important is a Hózhó-Diné philosophy that encompasses beauty, balance and goodness in all things physical and mental and its bearing on everyday experience. Eric-Paul’s work, which he describes as being “encompassed in the threads of weaving and life,” creates an immersive and charged space influenced by his homes, ceremonies and rituals from his past, future and present selves.
Participated in the “Rabbit Hole: Pod Theory” Residency, 2020.