El Dia de los Muertos en XOXO, 1990

Photograph with paint

11 x 17 in. (image)

24 x 19 x 0.75 in. (framed)

Artists Lissa Jones and Curt Fukuda collaborated from the mid-1980's until 2000. Their largest body of work explored the Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Narratives have always been an important part of our work,, whether the storyline is explicit or implied.

The Muertos series grew out of a love for the Mexican culture, which connected us with the joys, mysteries, and spiritual lives of the people who live in Oaxaca. Of the Oaxacan rituals, we found el Dia de los Muertos the most compelling. Just as we were fascinated with the influence of the celebration on the Oaxacans, it was important to understand its effect on us. As Asian Americans, who grew up with our own set of rituals, we found a commonalty in the Oaxacan view of life and death. So our art provided a dialog, often telling a story, exploring questions regarding living with mortality.

Though we use the medium of photography, our images, even the ones of Dia de los Muertos, are not meant to be documentary photographs. The images are the foundation of our art, the exploration of rituals related to life, spirit, and death-woven into the texture of a narrative.