Culture & Community | Dia de los Muertos | Arts & Culture | Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hills | Possible Futures
Ayla Jeddy Photos.
A group of young children sat at a picnic table outside Possible Futures on Edgewood Avenue, papier-mâché skulls half-finished in their hands. Vendors bustled around them: elaborate sugar skulls from Fair Haven’s Rodeo Grocery, beaded jewelry and clothes from Oaxaca, coffee and refreshments from Café Rebelde. Nearby, Lorenza Palma gave away neat, sugar-sprinkled loaves of her pan de muerto.
It marked the first celebration of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, at Possible Futures, nestled on the corner of Edgewood Avenue and Hotchkiss Street in the city’s Edgewood neighborhood. Saturday, artists, vendors, and neighbors came together to observe the day, a Mexican (and now, diasporic) tradition with Indigenous Aztec roots that takes time to remember and welcome back the spirits of those who have physically passed on.
Saturday’s observance was the brainchild of artist Sarahi Zacatelco and New Haven mom and educator Elisa Vishnoi, as well as bookstore owner Lauren Anderson and Café Rebelde’s Carissa Vega. Earlier this week, Zacatelco designed a community ofrenda, or altar, at the bookspace that became the centerpiece of the event. Vishnoi met Zacatelco when she hosted New Haven’s inaugural Guelaguetza earlier this year.
An ofrenda is an altar that displays images of a lost loved one as well as flowers, candles, and foods that they enjoyed to welcome them back to the altar on the Day of the Dead.
“I'm really excited because I have more people that are not Hispanic or Mexican, they enjoy it,” Zacatelco said. “They really want to know what this is. I see kids making flowers and doing craft, and I was like wow, I can’t believe that we have more people excited about this and the kids love it. I’m really excited about this.”
For her, it wasn’t just the chance to make an ofrenda outside of her home, but also the chance to share it with the community. Born in Oaxaca, Mexico in the 1980s, Zacatelco immigrated to the U.S. with her mom and siblings in the 1990s, and settled in New Haven in 2001. For years, she has focused her work on public art, including murals in Fair Haven and an ofrenda on the New Haven Green last year.
Vega, who co-founded Café Rebelde with her husband Mauriel in 2020, echoed Zacatelco’s enthusiasm. Vending at the event with her two children Kai and Soleil, she said she was grateful to Anderson for opening up the space. Since Rebelde entered the scene two years ago, Anderson has been an enthusiastic partner: she sells the coffee beans in the store, just as she did at Possible Futures’ precursor on Whalley Avenue.
“It's important to take up space, and to be able to have spaces where we can celebrate our culture,” Vega said. “ We can show up together in community. There's not many of those spaces, you know, it's hard to find.
Throughout the afternoon, Anderson ran in and out of the store to help people add their own loved ones to the ofrenda. Anyone who came into the store with a picture or a clipping of some kind was invited to honor those they had lost on the ofrenda.
Marsha Campbell, who lives down the street from Possible Futures, was one of them. She put up a picture of her aunt, who passed away 10 years ago. She came to the event with her mother and son to visit it. Campbell encountered Día de los Muertos celebrations when she lived in New York 11 years ago, but was returning to the celebration for the first time since then.
“It’s about remembering our loved ones and celebrating them, at least that’s how I see it,” she said.
Inside the bookstore, Anderson had laid out a display of books in both English and Spanish about Día de los Muertos. She said that the day, and the presence of the altar, has given her space to have conversations with her neighbors about “about people in their lives that they've lost that they've wanted to add.”
“I always love when there are public art pieces that are interactive, and I think the idea of like a community altar is just a really lovely concept,” she said. “Because all of us no matter what cultural background we come from, have lost people and love people and try to keep their memory alive.”
Late in the afternoon, Vishnoi came inside to read one of these aloud to the children in the bookstore. She chose Just a Minute by Yuyi Morales. The book centers on a grandmother who is visited by death, embodied by the character Señor Calavera, but manages to distract him from his mission of taking her with him by making arrangements for her birthday.
At the end of the story, Vishnoi invited the children present to reflect on anyone in their own lives who they might have lost. Vishnoi's own family lost her mother-in-law over the summer, and she spoke about how her family will honor that loss this year.
With the help of her five and a half year old daughter Maya, Vishnoi then passed out strips of colored paper and invited everyone to design something to remember a lost loved one, so they too could be displayed on the community ofrenda.
The altar at Possible Futures will remain on display through the end of Día de los Muertos on November 2. The bookstore is located at 318 Edgewood Avenue.