The community altar is composed of two interwoven elements that invite reflection, remembrance, and life.

The framing sculptures are adorned with Cempoalxochitl (marigold) flowers crafted by students, visitors, and local residents during two workshops: the first hosted by Latin GSD and HUMAS at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and the second by Culture House at the Harvard Square Kiosk, led by TILE Design Studio Team. These structures serve as active canvases, inviting participants to contribute a handmade Cempoalxochitl (marigold) flower and inscribe or illustrate messages honoring loved ones—an offering in celebration of Día de Muertos, the Mexican tradition that honors life through memory.

At the altar’s center stands a sculpture composed of reclaimed industrial materials and earth-based elements.

It embodies cycles of memory, labor, material transformation, and migration—anchoring the altar in histories of movement and extraction. The cinder blocks, wood, and concrete are salvaged remnants from a recently demolished pavilion. Their current state—marked by wear, fracture, and form—bears traces of their previous use, while the materials themselves carry deeper histories tied to extraction, environmental degradation, and displacement.

The Cempoalxochitl flowers, harvested in Mexico, will slowly decay and transform, echoing the altar’s themes of impermanence and renewal. These materials are not neutral; they carry the weight of hands that mined, harvested, and transported them across borders. The sculpture invites viewers to walk its perimeter, tracing the seams where memory and material collide.

This composition resists monumentality.

Instead, it fragments and accumulates—like memory itself, and like the notes and offerings that surround it.