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Xirenita Arts
Santa Cruz Clock Tower Ofrenda
The ofrenda is a community-built altar built with the intention to bring attention to lives lost due to state-sanctioned violence and police brutality. The ofrenda uplifts the Indigenous practice of making offerings during La Temporada de Muertos, when the veil between worlds is thin.
In 2021, the Clock Tower Altar was built as an installation at Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. Four community-based cultural groups came together to build 4 altars, each one representing different traditional altars-- Black Indigenous, North American Indigenous, Asian & Pacific Islander, and Mesoamerican.
After Tyre Nichols was killed by police and a mass shooting devastated the Asian American community in early 2023, the clock tower once again became a community ofrenda
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