An altar to the sky, made by Mexican artist Paloma Vianey

Vianey in front of the side of the altar dedicated to Juan Gabriel. Photo by Emma Cieslik. 

BY EMMA CIESLIK November 3, 2025

This past Saturday, the Mexican Cultural Institute opened to the public for one of the largest Day of the Dead celebrations in Washington, DC. The festivities, featuring mariachi music, folk dancing, and foods of home, welcomed over a thousand people into a house that once quartered White House guests. This year, the centerpiece of this year’s festivities was a traditional altar, or ofrenda, surrounded by oil paintings by Mexican interdisciplinary artist Paloma Vianey. 

Ahead of the celebration, Vianey shared more about the inspiration behind and importance of this altar to Washington, DC’s Mexican and Mexican-American communities facing systemic violence from the National Guard and ICE agents. 

The traditional ofrenda honors four prominent figures in Mexican culture: Luis Barragán, Rosario Castellanos, Juan Gabriel, and Remedios Varo. Each side of the altar is dedicated to one of these figures who have contributed to the literary, artistic, and musical cultures of Mexico, decorated with objects that represent their legacies from vinyl records to typewriters and books they have written. Some of these objects also appear in the still-life and landscape oil paintings that Vianey created and displayed at each corner of the pyramid. 

The side of the altar dedicated to Rosario Castellanos. Photo by Emma Cieslik. 

Each landscape represents a place in Mexico that was significant to their past. Gabriel’s landscape painting is especially significant to Vianey, who like Gabriel is from Ciudad Juárez in northern Mexico. Gabriel is well known for defying other authors and filmmakers who depicted Ciudad Juárez as dangerous. “Rather, he emphasized the city’s vibrancy and joyful community. Ciudad Juárez was the city where his career was born (at the legendary Noa Noa club) and he always expressed gratitude and love toward my home city,” Vianey wrote in the label text. 

The detailed view of objects devoted to Juan Gabriel on the altar. Photo by Emma Cieslik. 

“When it [the city] had a big violence boom, I turned to painting as this discipline for healing,” Vianey said. “I try to depict positive, imaginary, and my work right now portrays the city through a lens of resilience, and saying there’s more to a city than its violence. It’s not as violent anymore but that image persisted, so I try to challenge that with my work.”

The side of the altar dedicated to Luis Barragán. Photo by Emma Cieslik. 

These two oil paintings are dedicated to Luis Barragán. Photo by Emma Cieslik. 

Gabriel’s green side of the altar--each of the figures has a designated color tied to their contributions, specifically pink for Luis Barragán, blue for Rosario Castellanos, and orange for Remedios Varo--first greet visitors when they approach the altar. It features a vinyl record of Gabriel’s music, a photo of him wearing one of his signature colorful jackets, a guitar and open songbook. Gabriel was especially important for challenging traditional machismo. While he never publicly came out, his spectacular performance clothing and coy answers to questions about his sexuality, have led many to consider him an icon for queer Latinos. 

The side of the altar dedicated to Remedios Varo. Photo by Emma Cieslik. 

Each of these paired paintings are installed on a mural depicting the sky in the color assigned to each figure, which matches the sawdust carpets depicting the sky on the ground beside the altar and the paintings. Traditionally, Vianey explained, sawdust carpets stretch the length of streets and create caminos guiding the beloved dead to these altars, where they can enjoy food and water during their visit to the land of the living. While Vianey’s altar is slightly unconventional with the objects chosen, it does feature traditional necessities like salt to aid ancestors in their return to the world.

When asked about the importance of the sky in this altar, Vianey replied: “I use the sky a lot in my work because I grew up in the desert, and looking up at the sky gave me hope. It’s also the only part of the landscape that’s not divided by the border. I’m from the border. Ciudad Juárez is right across from El Paso, Texas. My work also speaks a lot about the border.” Vianey is perhaps most well-known for her large-scale public art installation on the Americas-Cordova International Bridge along the US-Mexico border. 

Her work is especially powerful in Washington, DC. Alongside Chicago, Washington, DC’s Latino community has been hit hard long before the National Guard was deployed. Perhaps like a city-wide ofrenda to the kidnapped, missing, and hurt, community members have been putting up signs across the city to document where people have been taken by federal agents. The simple black and white notices serve as reminders of the intense violence people are facing throughout and the everyday fear of separation and loss when people are taken and loved ones are left wondering what happened. 

Reddit, NextDoor, and Signal chats have exploded in the past several weeks as people try to document the chaos and provide answers to those whose family, friends, and neighbors have disappeared. 

The Mexican Cultural Institute decked out for Day of the Dead. Photo by Emma Cieslik. 

Vianey explained that this altar and the celebration this past Saturday was more important than ever because “Mexicans rely on the community so much,” she said. “We're a very community-heavy culture. It’s really very important right now to stay together, especially us immigrants who have left our home to be here so that we can still carry on those traditions and celebrate. Immigrants make this country great through the many cultures that the immigrants provide.” 

The traditional altar and oil paintings will be on display for the whole month of November and people can visit the Institute on Mondays-Fridays from 10 am-6 pm and on Saturdays from 12 pm-4 pm.