ALL REZ: Kickoff Celebration

*Registration is not required but appreciated*

The Maxwell and Axle Contemporary are proud of their partnership with Diné photographer Rapheal Begay and independent curator Lillia McEnaney. ALL REZ: Keyah, Hooghan, K'e, Jina I Land, Home, Kinship, Life is a traveling, site-specific, experimental photography exhibition and museological project.

While the Maxwell will feature an installation opening on May 4, 2024, of Begay's photography documenting his perspectives of these cultural themes within the landscape, the traveling portion of ALL REZ will begin June 6, 2024, and take Begay's photographs back to his home community in the Axle Contemporaiy mobile artspace.

The interior of the truck will be transformed into a welcoming space for reflection and conversation with the aitist about his photographs and the cultural content held therein. As an exercise in creative place-making with the goal of fostering active storytelling, ALL REZ centers the voices and experiences of Dine community members, offering a reciprocal process of exhibition-making.

At the ALL REZ: Kickoff Celebration, enjoy a unique public event in which we will have the actual Axle Contemporary Truck at the museum before it goes on its journey into and throughout Diné Bikéyah (Navajo Nation). Light fare, refreshments, and music in the museum courtyard!

Rapheal Begay is a visual storyteller based in the Navajo Nation. Informed by cultural teachings and land-based knowledge, he activates landscape photography and oral storytelling traditions to document and celebrate the Diné way of life.

Housed in a custom retrofitted 1970 aluminum delivery truck, Axle Contemporary is an art gallery on wheels that activates unusual venues, such as schools, restaurants, grocery stores, and city streets, thus, expanding artists' reach to diverse communities.

Lillia McEnaney is a museum anthropologist, independent curator, and freelance arts writer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Host or Publisher UNM Maxwell Museum of Anthropology