Artists use the holiday to highlight national ills. John Stanton reports from Mexico City for BuzzFeed News.
A Mexican artist erected a massive Dia De Los Muertos altar in the city's central Zocalo square on Saturday dedicated to 43 missing college students from the state of Guerrero.
The students disappeared more than a month ago. Authorities say local officials and corrupt police are to blame.
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Although Dia De Los Muertos altars are typically erected to family members or friends, Mexican artists have long used the tradition to highlight social and political causes.
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Artist Octavio Marquez Orozco originally conceived of the two statues — which depict a bound man with a black hood on his head and a mourning mother — as a symbol of the epidemic of disappearances in the country, the outrage over the missing college students prompted him to add a dedication to them.
The altar is "to support the disappeared, and [is] a social critique of the state," Marquez told BuzzFeed News. "The mask represents the part of the country that has been kidnapped, and [the woman] is the motherland. She is crying out for her children."
![The altar is "to support the disappeared, and [is] a social critique of the state," Marquez told BuzzFeed News. "The mask represents the part of the country that has been kidnapped, and [the woman] is the motherland. She is crying out for her children."](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uAD7U_4HJxfKv1RANiQ4K6JRaGJW9RY0FKdDkshS07fP905wVSqjPod45Qa5Qi_eUBKLcJSdpHMg=s0-d)
John Stanton / Via BuzzFeed
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