Equal parts Day of the Dead and art celebration
The Albuquerque Museum is hosting a free community event featuring shoebox parade floats, a DJ spinning Motown and a screening by the acclaimed filmmaker Sterlin Harjo (“Reservation Dogs”).
Equal parts Day of the Dead and a celebration of Native American and Latinx artists, the party runs from 1-8 p.m. on Saturday, complete with food trucks and music.
Visitors will get to design their own art projects in the form of miniature parade floats, museum curator Josie Lopez said.
“We’ll provide the materials; shoeboxes and different kinds of paper,” she said. “Hopefully, they’ll bring their own photographs.”
The individual works will reflect the museum’s installation of Mario Ybarra Jr.’s full-sized parade float dedicated to his mother.
“She’d clean the house every Saturday while listening to her favorite music,” Lopez said.
The piece features a platform where visitors can attach their own hand-made flowers, she added.
“On top of that, it spins with marionettes of his mother. It’s mostly Motown music. It is totally nostalgic,” Lopez added.
The Seminole/Muscogee filmmaker Harjo will screen his latest film “Love and Fury,” a tribute to Indigenous artists.
“The film follows several (Indigenous) artists as they navigate the art world,” Lopez said. Co-creator of the TV series “Reservation Dogs,” Harjo and the Glorieta-based artist Cannupa Hanksa Luger (Standing Rock Reservation) will launch a live audience recording of the “Broken Boxes Podcast” series “Long Con,” an ongoing conversation between the two artists.
“Obviously, in terms of the art project, there’s going to be a lot of celebrating and creating and engaging in material that is hands-on,” Lopez added. “There will be some interesting insights into the art world.”