Ellie Harrison, a performance maker and artist from Leeds, has reimagined The Day of the Dead with a 9-day celebration of life and death. She has worked along side international collaborators, such as Zion Art Studio who are from Mexico as well as the people of Yorkshire.
The ‘All That Lives’ celebrations started in Leeds on Friday 27th October and continues until Saturday 4th November. During this time a variety of events, exhibitions and workshops will be taking place in various locations around Quarry Hill.
The festival which is also part of Leeds 2023 Year of Culture, is the finale of Ellie Harrisons 13-year long body of work, ‘The Grief Series’. Harrison said: “The festival is the perfect way to say a final fond farewell to this project, which began as a way of navigating my personal feelings about loss and grief.”
El Día de los Muertos (The Day of the dead) is a Mexican holiday celebrated on the 1st and 2nd of November. The holiday focuses on celebrating and honouring family members who have died. Ellie Harrison commented: “I’ve been collaborating with the artist collective from Mexico for a number of years and have learnt so much about their culture and the way they openly celebrate those they’ve loved and lost, rather than just privately mourning them.”
For this particular project, artists from Zion Art Studio in Mexico who are renowned Cartoneria paper sculptors have made a large new sculpture in the atrium of Leeds Playhouse.
Harrison hopes people will leave with “a lighter heart” after experiencing the large variety of exhibitions that aim to help people see the beauty of loss and make it something that should be celebrated and honoured rather than a period of sadness as it is for so many.
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