Dia de los Muertos 2017: Ceremony & Exhibition
As part of a celebration of Dia de los Muertos, the UIC Latino Cultural Center hosted a series of interactive events both on and off campus. After setting up an altar of ofrendas (offerings) at the center on October 30th, a workshop on November 1st allowed for students to decorate sugar skulls, construct paper flowers, and create seed bombs to celebrate, life, death, and the cultural practices behind day of the dead.. This same day, the Latino Cultural Center honored the late environmental feminist activist, Berta Caceres through an altar at the National Museum of Mexican (see other spotlight).
The next portion of the year’s day of the dead celebration took place on November 2nd and consisted of a ceremony. For the ceremony, Nahua Lessons visited the center to instruct students in Indigenous dance and conducting a symbolic cleansing ceremony. A final event took place at Casa Michoacan as an a collaborative art installation with artist Esperanza Gama, honoring Mexican artisans. This series of events was open to the public and done in an effort to enrich cultural understanding and participation of the practices behind Dia de los Muertos.
