Brooklyn’s iconic Green-Wood Cemetery unveiled its traditional large-scale, participatory ofrenda (altar) art installation marking Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) at its Historic Chapel on Oct. 11.
This year’s installation, titled “Reposo y Recuerdo” (“Rest and Remember”) by renowned transdisciplinary artist Laura Anderson Barbata, transforms the landmarked chapel into a meditative space for contemplation and reflection. It invites the community to come together and honor the lives of their departed through the cultural tradition of Día de los Muertos, celebrated in Mexico and parts of Latin America from Oct. 31 through Nov. 2 with music, dancing, family gatherings, and ofrendas — home altars adorned with offerings to loved ones who have passed.
Four handwoven hammocks, created by Mexican artisans Doña Roberta Pino Mis and Don Marcelino López Jiménez from the Yucatán Peninsula using pre-Columbian techniques, form a peaceful space for reflection. They invite visitors to connect with their departed loved ones while listening to the comforting sounds of the Amazon rainforest — recorded by Barbata in Venezuela in the mid-1990s — and music by Apparatjik.
Inspired by decorations used in Mexican festivities, the installation features colorful papel picado (cut-paper banners), paper flowers, and marigold garlands cascading from the ceiling and adorning the walls. The vibrant display is meant to bring visitors joy as they remember their loved ones.
The festive patterns and whimsical images of skeletons on bicycles wearing fanciful hats bring a vibrant energy that celebrates the enduring bond between the living and the dead.
The altar is adorned with colorful skulls created by the Colectivo Tiempo de Oficios, an art collective based in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Some are decorated in the traditional Mexican style, while others are more experimental.
“A lot of [artists] took a creative license and did what they felt and how they’re connected to the skull and the offering and the project,” Barbata told Brooklyn Paper.
Barbata, who was born in Mexico City and divides her time between there and Brooklyn, said she wanted to create a space that felt distinct from the outside world.
“The visual, all the colors, all of the different forms that you’re going to see in references that you can connect, and the dialog between the Chapel’s architecture and the trains with these other forms that have been introduced into the installation, meaning the colors, the paper, the materials and also the audio, to me, was very important,” Barbata said.
Visitors can also offer seeds to their loved ones, following the pre-Hispanic tradition of offerings, or use them to decorate the tomb in front of the altar.
“Through time, those offerings have evolved [and] include full meals like mole, pastries and hot chocolate. So I wanted the staples, the seeds, to be there as an offering to the spirits, to the past,” said Barbata, who is deeply engaged in social and community-based projects across the Venezuelan Amazon, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Norway and the United States.
In keeping with the spirit of Día de los Muertos, death is honored not as an end but as a connection to the past. Visitors are encouraged to add personal tributes, such as photos, notes, flowers or other small mementos, to the altar, decorate a calavera (skull) printout, or share memories on the flowing red ribbon.
“Day of the Dead is seen as a joyous moment,” Barbata explained. “You want your ancestors to come back and to feel your joy for them so that they can receive your love, your joy, your offerings, your gifts, your memories. And so it really is about also understanding and accepting the cycles of life. As death is part of life, life is part of death; it is not something to be afraid of.”
Barbata hopes the installation creates a moment of quiet reflection and memories of happiness for those who have known loss, while also forming a deeper bond within the community.
“It’s a community within the community,” she said. “There’s the community we build in our environments, and even the ones that we weave, not knowing each other. Many people might not meet, but yet they’re all contributing to the same thing in the same spirit.”
“Reposo y Recuerdo” is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Nov. 16. A Day of the Dead family celebration will be held Nov. 1 near the Historic Chapel.
