Returning the Cultural Celebrations of the Dead to the centre of Mexico City
I have always had a more different attitude towards death than the people that surround me, as well as the majority of the people in the western world. With my trip to Mexico.
When we visited a small community south of the countries capital in a village called Mixquic, I was completely enveloped in the celebrations of the dead. The streets were full of colours people wearing all sort of skulls in all different shapes and sizes, others were dancing or singing. I soon realised I was at home, here were people celebrating the death, but not as some sort of dark and mournful ending, but rather a part of life. I also realised on return to the main capital that these celebrations like many other cultural celebration were less about the celebration, but rather as an obligation to a particular date in the calendar.
With my proposal for a cemetery right in the cities centre, and placed in one the most unique sites in the city itself, it was my main ambition to bring that euphoric atmosphere at Mixquic and build a stage for it in the centre of Mexico City. besides being a stage for the celebrations for the day of the dead, the cemetery acts as an open ground for people to pass through or perhaps visit, but its visibility I would choose to believe becomes a physical embodiment of the Mexican attitude towards death.
With most of the western world progressing with their technologies and being these image soy progression and advancements, the cultural qualities become limited and almost unseen. Death itself, becomes something suppressed due to the improvement in healthcare, it no longer needs to be part of our life, something the people of Mixquic and other smaller communities would disagree. The proposal of the Tlateloco Park Cemetery, would bring back death back into all those modern mexican living in the city, and would be able to reestablish those cultural roots within the cities centre once again, and allow death to become something encouraged rather than suppressed.
