2001-2011, kwe’é díí shighan ńt’ę́ę́, i wonder what this Key opens now?

In Person  |  Performances

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.