Celebrating Life and Death. The Día de Muertos Festival: An Invitation to Confront Our Mortality in a Special Way

At the beginning of November, on All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, people in our climes remember the dead. But they do so elsewhere, too: Ever since the James Bond film Spectre, which opens with a Mexican Day of the Dead parade, the world has been familiar with the Mexican festival when the dead return for a day from the afterlife to the realm of the living and all celebrate lavishly, with candles, incense, an altar, flowers, cut paper decorations, and sugar skulls being indispensable elements. Calaca e. V. has been organising the Mexican Feast of the Dead at different venues since 1995. This year marks the first time it will take place at the Humboldt Forum.