Day of the Dead Mexico: Summary
Our celebrations for Day of the Dead at the end of November
were a huge success. We would like to thank Liverpool Central Library and WorldMuseum Liverpool for being gracious hosts and providing the perfect settings
for people of all ages to engage on the topic of death.
The first event took place at Central Library and we had
people there from start to finish, with approximately 40 people visiting our
stand and around 15 stopping to have a chat. Grandparents with their
grandchildren spoke about their late loved ones; a mother shared stories of her
daughter that she felt she couldn’t openly discuss with many others; two
teenage girls brought photographs of their beloved grandad and pet dog; and a
mother with her friend and three children decorated a frame and left a
beautiful message for their ‘Pop’.
Section of our Day of the Dead altar
We were so busy that we ran out of frames after the first
hour! The stock was replenished before the next day of celebrations and crafts
at the World Museum on Sunday 29th November. And it was a good job
we did. Numerous families joined us in the Treasure House Theatre and our craft
tables were extremely popular, with almost 100 people visiting us and getting
involved. A huge thank you to Adam for drumming up interest while
simultaneously promoting the Destination Space Exhibition in his astronaut costume!
Our crafters busily decorating
Our crafts table had glittery stickers, plasticine and frames to decorate, alongside printed pictures of the Day of the Dead skulls to colour in. We had some beautiful submissions that we are hoping to display at our next event. Others loved their customised pictures so much, they took them home with them, but we were lucky enough to capture a couple of pictures of them showing them off.
The events were extremely popular,
and we were asked when the next one will be. One young girl had attended our
previous Day of the Dead Celebrations in the museum in Dying Matters AwarenessWeek 2014 and said she’d be back when we do another one! Initial talks about
another event in half-term week early next year, have begun. If it does go
ahead, it will be even more craft based and interactive. Watch this space for
news of upcoming events.
