Día de los Muertos Exhibition to Help MU Community Become Culturally Aware
Erin Brock
Manchester University began what may become a new tradition celebrating death. Professor Beate Gilliar, who teaches various English courses along with a first-year seminar about life and death, was inspired to bring her teachings to life by acknowledging death in all its various ways. To do this, she did what many others might think of as absurd—she brought a coffin to campus.
The coffin, tucked in the back corner of library for a week, was not only on display for students to look at but was left open, inviting students, faculty and staff to lie down in. The invitation to experience death in a conscious way did not stop at the coffin. Students from Gilliar’s FYS course put together pillars that represented various aspects of death such as the suicide forest in Japan and different ways of celebrating death such as Día de los Muertos or “Day of the Dead,” a holiday commonly celebrated in Hispanic cultures.
To add to the education and awareness of death, Professor Arturo Yañez, with the help of his wife and other volunteers, assembled and decorated altars that one would commonly see in Hispanic cultures during Día de los Muertos. The altars can vary in looks, but they all share fundamental commonalities. “Each level represents something different,” Yañez explains. “The bottom level is purgatory, the middle level is earth, and the top level is heaven.”
While some interpretations of the levels vary, they tend to follow traditional Catholic beliefs. Altars also commonly include pictures of the loved ones they are dedicated to along with their favorite foods. Yañez says the food is placed there so that when the loved ones return after a long time of traveling, they can have something to eat.
However, being from Venezuela, Yañez does not typically celebrate Día de los Muertos in the way it is being represented at Manchester. “Most people believe it is a Mexican culture celebration and I agree,” Yañez says about the difference in celebrations among Hispanic cultures. “[In Venezuela], we clean tombs and bring flowers to our loved ones to pay our respect.”
Despite this tradition being a primarily Mexican one, it was important to bring it to Manchester in hopes of educating the community on death in other cultures. As diversity increases in Manchester, maintaining the cultural awareness becomes increasingly more important.
Manchester acknowledges these differences through various multicultural clubs and activities, along with events such as the International Fair; but there are other differences that are not commonly acknowledged. “People have different views of life, but what if we share different views of death?” asks Yañez when discussing the importance of cultural awareness.
According to him, this exhibition is important in educating others on topics they may not be otherwise aware of. By looking at things through a unique perspective such as lying in a coffin or snacking on Mexican dishes next to an altar, one can better grasp the message that is trying to be conveyed.
Despite decling to get in the coffin, Yañez is very aware of the concept of dying. “We never think about death, but one day we’ll be there,” he explains. One goal of this week is for the concept of death to become more normalized through the array of exhibitions and presentations.
Gilliar worked diligently to open the community’s minds to death and other endings (also the title of her FYS). By inviting speakers who have had experience with death one way or another, she went down a path very few choose to go down—a path that normalizes death and accepts it for what it is. Not only did she wander this path, but she brought many students, faculty and staff along with her, bringing all different cultures and backgrounds to guide the way.
With the help of library staff Jill Lichtsinn and other students, beautiful displays were set up all around the library to educate each passerby on the ideas of death. The event ended on Sunday, November 4, but Gilliar hopes that there will be something of similar appearance next year.
If students are interested in learning more about Día de los Muertos and other Hispanic cultures, Yañez invites them to sign up for his 200-level Spanish course on pre-Hispanic society and culture in the spring.