He Who Wears Faces on His Ears
Total run time: 8:46
HD video, stereo, color
2022
The piece continues Hopinka’s exploration of Indigenous mythologies, reflecting on how they resonate within contemporary geographies and permeate everyday life as an invisible, reverberating presence. Both the exhibition and the video’s titles reference the Ho-Chunk myth of Red Horn, a spiritual figure also known as He Who Wears Human Faces as Earrings. Red Horn moves between the human and the mythic, sent by the Earthmaker—the creator of heaven, earth, humans, and ghosts – to earth in human form to fight evil, ultimately dying and being revived. The narrative’s cyclical journey between worlds mirrors Hopinka’s own approach to language, myth, and cultural memory.