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A child in a hand-decorated calavera mask with flower-shaped eyes and glitter hearts, the ofrenda lit up behind her
Three children lined up in the calavera masks they decorated, each one different: flowers, stars, glitter hearts
Six papel picado calaveras hand-cut from light crepe paper in pink, purple, yellow, blue, orange, and green
Crepe paper cempasúchil in yellow, magenta, and orange on a woven sarape, two small painted ceramic calaveras nestled between the flowers
Close-up of a cartonería animal still unpainted, layers of paper strips pasted by hand over the shape
Three cartonería animals in white paper on the parquet, dried overnight and waiting for their paint
Children arranging their ink drawings on transparent film over the light table before the cyanotype exposure
Cyanotypes from the week pegged to a line with wooden clothespins, hanging up to dry
A child in a hand-decorated calavera mask with flower-shaped eyes and glitter hearts, the ofrenda lit up behind her
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§ II — About this event

Día de los Muertos Workshop Week.

Día de Muertos is a day of objects and of memory. Flowers on the threshold, faces on masks, skulls on the ofrenda. Every object has a place in the tradition, and every place has a story.

Over five afternoons in the fall school holidays, Bela guides children aged 6 to 10 deeper into that tradition, one object at a time. They start with the catrina and the cempasúchil, the mask and the flower that welcome the dead. Then they build a figure from layered paper, let it dry overnight, and return the next day to paint it. Further in, the room goes dark and light does the work: stencils, paper, and a careful exposure that turns into a cyanotype. The week closes with the calavera, the skull that sits at the centre of the ofrenda.

By the last afternoon the table is full of what the children made, each piece a fragment of a tradition they walked through with their hands.

The evening, hour by hour.

Day 1
Masks & cempasúchil.

After a short introduction, two shorter activities: paper masks on a template and folded paper marigold flowers.

Day 2
Cartonería, day 1.

Building the paper surface of a cartonería figure: paper strips pasted by hand onto a 3D-printed base shape. The figures dry overnight.

Day 3
Cartonería, day 2.

Painting and decorating the dried figure.

Day 4
Cyanotype

Composing paper stencils with own paper into a print and exposing it on an indoor UV lamp.

Day 5
Final figure.

A three-dimensional paper skull piece: cutting, decorating and gluing a small figurine to take home.

§ IV — Venue

GEH8 Seminarraum,
Gehestr. 8, 01127 Dresden

§ IV.B · Getting here
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