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Close-up of a child wearing a white paper skull mask with pink flower eye-holes, a pink crepe-paper flower, and glitter heart stickers, an ofrenda with candles blurred behind her
Three children standing against a white wall, each wearing a differently decorated paper skull mask with cut-out eyes
Six papel picado skull cut-outs strung on a line, arranged in a circle on a wood floor
Two small painted ceramic skulls, one red with white teeth and one pale with lettering, set on a striped sarape among crepe-paper marigolds
Close-up of an unpainted papier-mâché animal head with pointed ears and a long snout, its surface built from layered paper strips
Three unpainted papier-mâché figures on a herringbone wood floor, resembling a donkey, a winged animal, and a turtle
Overhead view of children's hands arranging sheets with swirling ink drawings on a white light table
Rows of dark blue cyanotype prints with white silhouette patterns clipped to a string with wooden clothespins
Paper flowers for eyes, the ofrenda behind: a mask only you could make
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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 programme, day by day.

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
Calaverita paper figure.

A three-dimensional paper skull piece: cutting, decorating and gluing a small figurine to take home. Friday starts two hours earlier, 13:00 to 15:00.

§ IV — Venue

GEH8 Seminarraum,
Gehestr. 8, 01127 Dresden

§ IV.B · Getting here
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