A painting of a Mexican day of the dead altar. A table is decorated with candles and family photographs line the wall. An archway over the table is hung with bread and fruit and big yellow flowers.

Altar de muertos con ancestros

This Day of the Dead altar is typical of the Huasteca region in Northeast Mexico. Climent portrays her relatives in the photographs placed on the altar, a traditional part of the feast. Her father, Enrique Climent, a Spanish painter from Valencia, is shown in the small photo in the foreground, and her aunt Amparo sits in a chair above. The large framed photo shows her husband’s great grandmother, flanked by two of her daughters. The family fled Belarus during the Bolshevik uprising, leaving behind their youngest child (age two) in the escape. The mother never saw her young child again, but fifty years later the two older daughters were able to locate their missing sister in Moscow.

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