Our friends at the Mission Cultural Center sent out this announcement on this year’s Day of the Dead/Dia de los Muertos exhibition.
The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA) announces its 29th annual Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) exhibition, “The Bones of Our Ancestors: Endurance and Survival Beyond Serra’s Mission(s)” will open October 16, 2015. This exhibition reinterprets the theme of Dia de los Muertos to memorialize the endurance and survival of Indigenous Peoples and protest the recent canonization of Junipero Serra by Pope Francis of the Catholic Church.Curators Celia Herrera Rodriguez (artist) and Theresa Harlan have selected 15 artists to create bold works to present an indigenous (i.e., Native American) response to the aftermath of Serra’s mission building and to call attention to the continued persistence of indigenous peoples across the Americas. Artists include Dugan Aguilar, Jesus Barraza, Melanie Cervantes, Juan Fuentes, Tricia Jameson-Rainwater, Jean LaMarr, John J. Leanos, L. Frank Manriquez, Cherrie L. Moraga, Celia Herrera Rodriguez, Jessica Sabogal, Kanyon Sayers-Roods, Alicia Bernal Siu, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, and Fan Warren. The exhibition spans photography, installations, animation, painting, prints, and a mural. MCCLA will host an opening reception on November 2, 2015starting at 6 pm.Celia Herrera Rodriquez, Xicana/O’dami is a visual artist and senior adjunct professor in Diversity Studies at California College of the Arts and lectures in Chicana/o Studies UC-Berkeley.Theresa Harlan is an independent writer and curator of contemporary Native American art and photography. By birth, she is Santo Domingo Pueblo and Jemez Pueblo.