Non Fungible Tokens: A New Addition to the Dia De Los Muertos Culture
Dia de los Muertos, also known as Day of the Dead, is a holiday celebrated on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2 to remember and honor family members who have died. Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19), the Dia de los Muertos festivals, fairs and artwork displays have gone entirely virtual to keep everyone safe causing the start of the Day of the Dead Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Project. NFTs are digital unique creations of artwork created by any artist who are heavily influenced by La Catrina. La Catrina is an elegantly dressed skeleton who is known to represent the dead by the Aztecs. This summer, two Latino men, David Galan and Armando Parrilla, began building the Day of the Dead NFT project and collected 7,777 NFTs from different artists. The goal of the project is to use each NFT to graphically design a virtual cemetery and festival for viewers to enjoy.
Dia de los Muertos originated 3,000 years ago where the Aztecs and Nauha people started to celebrate this holiday based on the belief that death was an integral part of life. An old tradition done by the Aztecs as a part of the celebration was to unleash monarch butterflies into the open air as a symbol of the spirits of the dead leaving the world. Today, the important holiday is popularly celebrated in Mexico and throughout Latin America. During the celebrations, families create an altar, also known as ofrenda in Spanish, which is a structure decorated with flowers, photos and candles. Occasionally, some families will place the favorite food and drinks of their deceased family members on top of the altar. Decorating an altar during Dia de los Muertos celebrations is important because it brings together the living families with the dead. Face masks and paintings are also a part of Dia de los Muertos celebrations where people paint their face with white paint and designs to resemble a skull and their deceased loved ones. Traditionally, Los Angeles (L.A.) will put together festivals where people come to dance, eat, listen to music and spend time together while commemorating their loved ones. Sophomore Jazmin Aguirre believes going to festivals is the best part of Dia de los Muertos celebrations and an experience she recommends to others.
“Every year my family and I try to attend one festival as a part of our Dia de los Muertos celebrations,” Aguirre said. “The festivals are always lively and beautiful, and I thoroughly enjoy them. I believe these festivals bring all the people together to honor family members together and keep the celebrations happy.”
Due to COVID-19, last year’s Dia de los Muertos celebrations were unable to proceed, large groups of people were not allowed to be together due to the increase of cases. Galan and Parilla took this opportunity to fill the NFT space with meaningful artwork inspired by Dia de los Muertos. To create an NFTs, one must have access to the Ethereum blockchain platform and a decent amount of cryptocurrency in their digital wallet to be able to sell it on the market. The Ethereum blockchain is a digital database containing all a user’s digital assets which can be shared publicly to anyone on the platform. According to Channel 2 News, “NFTs are digital recordings of ownership of a token, which can be transferred to a digital wallet. And unlike regular cryptocurrencies, NFTs have a unique value,” which assures the artists that nobody modifies their artwork and protects the art from illegal copying and reselling. On Nov. 1 a pre-sale event took place where the NFTs collected were put on the online market through a website. People who are on a whitelist in the database would invest their money on the artwork that they are interested in and a maximum of three NFT’s per digital wallet address is accepted in the one time 24-hour sale. Eventually, Garan and Parilla plan to design a virtual reality world with all of the NFT artworks collected. Carolyn Edwards, Spanish 2 and Spanish 3 class teacher feels that the NFT project is very unique and is interested to see how this project can grow and add more value to the Dia de los Muertos celebrations.
“The NFT project is something that really caught my eye and I [am very] intrigued by it,” Edwards said. “I am excited to see the virtual reality world Garan and Parilla plan to create and I hope this project will continue further and represent the Dia de los Muertos day as it is important to Mexican culture.”
The Day of the Dead NFT project received many positive responses since it was launched. In this reality world Garan and Parilla plan to create, the artists can create tombs and personalize them with family members’ names written on them with the addition of the NFTs purchased on the tombs. The purpose of the virtual artwork world is to help visualize and design a graveyard with departed souls in case people are unable to visit a graveyard location. NFT’s could be added as another aspect of celebrations to Dia de los Muertos for generations to come. They will represent the deceased sounds virtually for the family’s to honor and remember. Sophomore Nicole Chukwudebelu supports the creations of NFTs and believes they can eventually become an integral part of the celebrations.
“I think the NFT’s designed by artists are exceptional and so beautiful,” Chukwudebelu said. “I could never paint something like those drawings. The idea of creating a virtual reality world is very unique and I hope it will become more known so others can experience it as well.”
