The day of the dead is regarded as a time where the dead can come alive again.
The dead is nothing we have to be afraid of,
it is just a part of life that we have to face
and in Mexican culture that has become actually really important in the way we perceive life.
The day of the dead is a festival and in that sense it is very much a celebration
and I suppose that is something that appeals to European and North American people
because that's not the way we understand death.
Death is for us, a sad moment.
We do remember our dead but we remember them in times of solemnity.
I can see how this kind of tradition gets connection with other people,.....
this celebration is a demonstration of generosity,
with richness of colour and with the sound, with the air,
with the paper that moves, the talk between all the family.
Not with sadness,
not like someone that we lost but like someone who is still with us.
It's a multi-century experience,
I think both for the people who make the alter and for the dead that visit.
People go on journeys with the offerings and take them to their burial places
and there sort of exploring this idea of the boundary between the living and the dead.
Its a liminal... place and liminal places often need catalysts to bring things closer
together.
They eat together and of course listen to music
and remember fondly the dead.
What is interesting in this celebration is not that death..... is coming to eat or is
coming to drink on the night
because we cannot see them.
The grandmother says that they take the spirit of things
and they take the love of us.
It's really impressive how the atmosphere becomes really really nice.
The smell of all the flowers that have been torn apart to create that atmosphere
actually makes you feel that you are going to something else beyond life.
Its conveyed by the flowers and its really weird because its the same smell
but it can tell you so many different things.
Day of the dead as well is something to show us how the colonisations
and the changes in the history of our country may include the new things but preserving
tradition.
What we're really talking about is what you see in a lot of cultures,
which is material culture or images and ideas being transferred through time,
obviously evolving as they come into contact with other cultures,
so Mexican culture is very much a mix of the different pre-Hispanic Meso-American cultures
that existed before the Spanish conquest and all the influence that came from Europe
which wasn't just from Spain.
I appreciate the sense of celebration,
to be able to celebrate even the death,
people continue their life on the memories of others.
And I think memories is real important,
in a world where it's so easy to forget.