Jarelis Calderon Photos.
The scent of fresh paint lingered in the air as soft melodies from the film Coco drifted through the room. At a long table, attendees-turned-artists carefully brushed color onto skeletons, each stroke bringing an upcoming celebration to life—and taking time to remember some of the lives lost too soon.
Music, memory and visual art came to the New Haven Pride Center on Sunday afternoon, as members of Vivan las Autonomas held an artmaking day in advance of their now-annual Día de Muertas celebration and community ofrenda, or altar. On November 1—observed across Mexico as Day of the Dead—the group will return to the Pride Center’s 50 Orange St. hub for an evening of observance, artmaking, collective grief and celebration.
Beyond creativity, the gathering reflected the organization’s deeper mission—to support victims and families affected by femicide and domestic violence, while keeping their stories alive through advocacy, healing, grief, and art.
Most recently, the group has been working to bring attention to the cases of Cynthia Jiminez-Pacheco, who was killed in a suspected murder-suicide in Hartford on Oct. 19, 37-year old Andrea Neyra Villegas, who was found dead inside an ex-boyfriend’s home in Middlefield, and New Britain’s 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres, who was starved and abused before her death last year.
Vivian has been doing tireless advocacy and commemoration work around the cases of Roya Mohammadi, Lizzbeth Alemán-Popoca and countless others. The group is currently working on a project mapping femicides across the state.
“Every woman that is murdered every year and every child who is murdered every year is the reason why we do this, you know because we are losing far too many women and children, all whose deaths are preventable,” said Vivian Co-Founder and organizer Vanesa Suarez. “We know that domestic violence is a preventable issue and yet we are not preventing their deaths.”
Celebrated at the beginning of November each year, Día de Muertos (Muertas here, for the emphasis on women) welcomes spirits of the departed temporarily back into the world of the living. Ofrendas, or altars, wait for them decorated with their favorite foods, including the traditional, sweet pan de muerto, glasses of water, bottles of alcohol and orange marigolds, which go back to the day’s Indigenous Aztec roots. It is thought that those foods help them find their way on the journey back to this realm.
A marketing coordinator at the University of New Haven, first-time attendee Jose Corpes (pictured above) was drawn to the event for the sense of community and the creative activity of painting skulls. Though Corpes is Puerto Rican, he admires the Mexican tradition of honoring loved ones who have passed and finds personal meaning in remembering family through cherished memories.
“It’s something that anybody could really appreciate,” he said.
Corpes sees events Sunday's this as a way to bring people from different cultures together, celebrate traditions, and raise awareness about those who might not be honored daily. He said he also hopes that more events like this are held in the community, adding that they offer a space to connect with others and celebrate cultural heritages.
Daniel Torres: “I wanted to come and honor it."
Drawn by a friend's invitation and a desire to honor his Mexican heritage, Daniel Torres also attended the afternoon’s artmaking session, savoring the scene as he painted a skull with a bone-white face, green glasses, marbled black hair and a bright red mouth.
“I wanted to come and honor it,” he said, explaining that while he doesn’t always create an ofrenda, he remembers his loved ones daily in his own personal way.
“I love that it’s including everyone. There’s no order,” he added of the event, highlighting the inclusivity of the celebration for people from different cultures. In “especially divisive” times, he feels that publicly celebrating cultural traditions is more important than ever for him.
“It feels nice to be seen, not just by my people but, outside of our community also,” he said.
For Suarez and Nika Zarazvand, founding members of Vivan las Autonomas, the annual observance is more than a tradition— it’s an act of remembrance, resistance, and collective healing.
Dia De Muertas focuses specifically on honoring women—including LGBTQ+ women, who are more likely to be victims of gender-based violence—and children whose lives were taken by femicide, trans femicide, or gender-based violence.
This year's altar includes a special installation dedicated to Mohammadi, a 29-year-old Afghan woman who died suddenly in April 2023, after years of reporting abuse and harassment from an uncle she was living with. “Justice isn’t about punishment,” Suarez said. “It’s about making sure what happened to Roya and to so many others, never happens again.”
Zarazvand added that the celebration also aims to connect local struggles with global ones, drawing parallels between violence against women and children in Connecticut and abroad. “We’re honoring Palestinian lives too, our grief is shared and so is our fight for life,” she said.
“We’re celebrating Mexican women, Afghan women, Puerto Rican women, Palestinian women, like there are so many different stories that are now enveloped in our event, in a way where like if we’re gonna tell all these stories we’re gonna tell all these stories correctly,” Zarazvand added. “And so it’s beautiful how it’s grown and to include more and more people because it really did start with one woman’s story.”
After Zarazvand was severely injured in a hit-and-run at last year's outdoor celebration, Vivan decided to hold this year’s event inside the New Haven Pride Center, creating a safer and more inclusive space for reflection and healing. For Zarazvand and Suarez, Dia De Muertas is not only a time to mourn but also a moment to celebrate the lives, laughter, and love of those who have been lost.
Looking ahead, Vivan is working to establish a Connecticut femicide archive in 2026—a digital memorial documenting victims' stories and exposing systemic failures to protect them. Zarazvand and Suarez see it as a “living altar,” a space where these stories can endure and where the community can better understand the true scale of gender-based violence.
“How we present it is gonna be different because it matters to us more how folks are interacting with the information and how you're able to emotionally connect with it,” Suarez said.
A junior at Wilbur Cross High School, Jarelis Calderon is an alumna of the 2025 summer cohort of the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative (YAJI). YAJI is a program in which New Haven, Hamden and West Haven Public Schools high school students pitch, write, edit and publish articles through the Arts Paper. This year, YAJI advisors included Arts Paper Editor Lucy Gellman and reporter and YAJI alum Abiba Biao.