Join Marietta Bernstorff, Consuelo Flores, and Lalo Alcaraz for a panel discussion around how Día de los Muertos' popularity has exploded in the last decade in the United States and globally. The celebration has become ubiquitous in Los Angeles and across the country is a mix of traditions of remembrance, pop culture and commercialization. Self Help Graphics & Art's Day of the Dead celebration has been from its origin about innovation and the formation of a tradition that is rooted in the Chicano identity, not an exact replica of the Mexican tradition. In what ways has this evolution shaped the celebration north of the border and how is it influencing change in Mexican celebrations? Is this growth and popularization a positive appreciation of culture and what is the line between participation and appropriation?
This panel is presented as part of programming around Self Help Graphics' PST LA/LA exhibition, Día de los Muertos: A Cultural Legacy, Past, Present and Future, on view until February 24, 2018. Beginning at 6pm, prior to the panel, will be a guided tour of the exhibition.
Marietta Bernstorff is a contributor to Self Help Graphics' catalog of Día de los Muertos: A Cultural Legacy, Past, Present and Future with her essay titled "Processes of Appropriation and the Transformation of Tradition in Day of the Dead Festivities" and has more than 30 years of experience in the arts, in both México and the United States. Bernstorff has been an artist, curator, teacher and director of numerous non profits and collectives in Arizona, California and Oaxaca. Currently she is curating a traveling exhibition for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oaxaca (MACO) and is teaching at the international art workshops (Cultural Bridges) in Oaxaca 2017 - 2018.
Consuelo Flores is a multidisciplinary artist from East Los Angeles. She has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Antioch University and is a member of Fierce Backbone Theater Company in Hollywood. She has written and directed three one-act plays at the Frida Kahlo Theater 10-Minute Play Festival in 2014 - 2016. As a poet, she's presented and performed her work throughout the US and Mexico. She is also known for her work for the Day of the Dead which includes literary altars, cultural tours, lectures on the traditional and contemporary history as well as detailed altars, and Day of the Dead fashions.
Lalo Alcaraz is a nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist of the daily comic strip "La Cucaracha", host of the Pocho Hour of Power radio show on LA's KPFK 90.7 FM, teaches illustration and comics, and is the author of books including "Migra Mouse" and "Latino USA: A Cartoon History". Most recently he has served as a writer and producer on "Bordertown" and as a cultural consultant to Pixar's "Coco".
Tickets are FREE, but RSVP is kindly requested via Eventbrite.
