1 Sing the praises of Raven Chacon.
Pulitzer prize-winning composer, performer, and installation artist Raven Chacon (Diné) presents three works honoring Indigenous women in the new Harwood Museum of Art exhibition, Three Songs, opening at 6:30 p.m. Friday in Taos. “Raven came from a matriarchal community,” says Nicole Dial-Kay, Harwood Museum curator of exhibitions and collections. “It’s important for him to focus on women as keepers of culture and creators of memory.”
Each piece in the exhibition, on view through July 7, represents a different medium. Silent Choir is a sound installation Chacon created from recordings of the environment at the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, many of which were led by women water protectors. “It’s very powerful,” Dial-Kay says. “It requires the most of people for them to imagine being there. You sit between two speakers and feel the presence of thousands of protestors.”
For Zitkála-Sá dedicates lithographs to Indigenous women who work in the arts. The title takes the name of the Yankton Dakota composer and musician who endured cultural erasure at a boarding school before becoming a cultural essayist, poet, short story writer, translator, violinist, and revered cultural leader. “Each lithograph is dedicated to a great Indigenous woman working through words, music, and art,” Dial-Kay says. Meant to be read like compositions, each is accompanied by directions of how to read and perform it. The museum’s programming includes four performances of the compositions, including one by Kona Mirabal (Taos Pueblo) on Saturday at 6 p.m.
A series of videos, Three Songs features Indigenous women singing in their tribal languages at sites of immense cultural trauma. For example, Sage Bond (Diné) sings along the Trail of Tears. “There are these terrible scenes,” Dial-Kay says. “But Raven has collapsed the past with the present so you can see what’s happened in the past, but also the strength and power of these women carrying on, speaking for their nations, being present and vocal.”
2 Warm your heart.
The Gathering of Quilts comes to Truth or Consequences on Friday and Saturday with over 100 examples on display from expert quilters. “Most of these quilters have been quilting over 30 years,” says Melissa Rucker, a member of the Winter Quilters of Sierra County. “There’s a lot of knowledge there.”
Held at the Truth or Consequences Civic Center from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days, the event also features demonstrations, vendors, and quilt appraisals.
3 See art without bounds.
In Albuquerque, guest curator Eric “Christo” Martinez debuts the second iteration of Paño Connections: Corazon Knows No Bounds at the National Hispanic Cultural Center’s Community Gallery on Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. The exhibition features works by incarcerated individuals inspired by paños, which are drawings on handkerchiefs or sheets. The series builds upon Into The Hourglass: Paño Arte From The Rudy Padilla Collection, currently on view at the NHCC Art Museum through April 14.
4 Belly laugh about it.
Zach Abeyta brings together his funniest pals for two shows at Dry Heat Comedy Club in Albuquerque on Saturday. Abeyta, who was named Albuquerque the Magazine’s best local comedian in 2022, makes poignant jokes about living in New Mexico and has built a regular following throughout the state. He brings together a hilarious lineup that includes Josh Fournier, AJ Mathews, Caryn Carson, and more.
5 Get inside a collection.
Nobody knows a museum’s collection like the folks who work among it. Opening Sunday at 2 p.m., the Museum of International Folk Art’s new exhibition Staff Picks: Favorites from the Collection features 70 works selected by 35 staffers that provide a peek at pieces not often seen. Museum employees picked two items from the collection’s storage areas and penned a statement about why they chose each piece.
Read more: For more things to do, check out our online calendar of events.