ASD Presents La Catrina 2022
OUR LATEST PUBLIC FLORAL INSTALLATION TO CELEBRATE DAY OF THE DEAD
Every fall as the marigolds reach peak bloom, people across Mexico get ready to celebrate el Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. For this highly anticipated holiday, the living take time to honor and reconnect with loved ones and ancestors who have passed.
Day of the Dead celebrations are not one-size-fits-all. The way each family celebrates is as unique as each of the individuals they celebrate. As it is believed the dead return on this day to visit, the living welcome them back with an altar of all their favorite earthly delights. Altars to the dead usually include festive displays of flowers and candles, favorite foods, drinks, and personal items set to a soundtrack of their favorite songs. Additionally, here is where you may find iconic sugar skulls, perhaps one of Mexico’s most popular cultural exports of the season.
But beyond the sugar skull, the true heroine of this holiday is La Catrina, the dame of the dead. With roots in an early 20th century satirical cartoon, La Catrina is depicted as an elegantly dressed female body with a skull for a head. From lifesize sculptures to drawings and figurines, she is perhaps the most emblematic visual found in Day of the Dead decorations all over Mexico.
At ASD, we reimagine La Catrina as a hybrid of our favorite aspects of Day of the Dead. Creating a sculpture that is larger than life and bedecked with sequins, beads, and gilded embroidery, her glittering and voluptuous form morphs out of an epic cascade of flowers.
Each year to mark our favorite holiday, we design and create a glamorous new Catrina to carry forward this tradition, evolving her into a new context to honor our Mexican roots.