Mexican home altars

Mexican Domestic Shrines are like miniature stages, a surreal juxtaposing of seemingly unrelated objects to create a narrative of Mexican Christianity.(31) Throughout rural Mexico, the home altar represents much about the inhabitants of the home, their tradition and culture. Altars are created to honour spirits and gods on a day-to-day basis and especially during Christmas and Day of the Dead celebrations.
What attracts me to these assemblages is, the unique aesthetic in which disparate objects are gathered together and layered and arranged to create highly original and personal representations of their creators devotion. All this achieved in an instinctive and evolving way. I particularly like the way clearly western objects like plastic ‘cupie’ dolls are included and appropriated to take on a new adopted meaning. When a non-Mexican viewer looks at the altar, they can be confusing and sometimes funny seeing what might be a Fred Flintstone or Bart Simpson doll strung up to a cross like some kind of Jesus. The subversive intent behind these inclusions is mysterious. Is the maker trying to poke fun at the Roman Catholic Church? Or is it a matter of necessity that one needs a doll to play Christ and finds Bart Simpson, knowing nothing of his former life as a TV star?