It is said the spirits of the dead return to loved ones who remember them on the Day of the Dead.

To celebrate the Mexican holiday, the NIU Art Museum‘s “The Day of the Dead Artist Invitational” exhibit can currently be seen in Altgeld Hall.

From Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 every year, Hispanic heritage calls for family remembers to visit cemeteries where they memorialize their deceased kin. They might clean up the gravestone, they might reminisce about good times spent with their loved one.

“Typically a Day of the Dead piece is collaboration and people add to it; it’s much more participatory,” said Jo Burke, director of the museum. “You add flowers, you add food and it grows.”

Eric Fuerte’s two pieces, “For The Love of Sugar” and “Soap Flag,” deal with the complexity of the artist’s multi-cultural upbringing and the search for one’s identity. His work stems from his grappling with living between being a patriotic American and having to live as a Mexican who doesn’t speak Spanish fluently.

A plastered skull sits in sugar next to a bottle of Topo Chico mineral water in one piece while a black light flashes on an American flag in a bottle in the other.

“Altar De Los Goros” by John Medina, deals with overindulgence and the importance of food in Mexican culture. In the altar piece, there are religious candles, tortillas, mariachi band figurines, grocery ads and a whole shelf full of peppers.

Fiber artist Christian Ortiz’s piece shows us the cempasuchil, a marigold flower that represents a pathway between the realms of the living and the dead. Wax flowers are used throughout, a technique picked up in Axochiapan, Mexico.

Since all of the works are in wood-lined cases in the hallways of Altgeld, Burke said it was challenging getting the altar pieces in its current form.

“I said, ‘okay you guys, I need you to defy gravity, but don’t mark it up and don’t do anything permanent,'” she said. “With Day of the Dead you usually use candles and sugar and I said ‘And you can’t use sugar and candles, okay, but just go right ahead and be creative, don’t let that stop you.’ Bless their hearts, they found out a way to do it.”

Since the exhibit is an invitational, the artists were selected by the museum’s advisory committee and consist of members of the community, students and alumni.

Although Burke admits she’s defying what an altar piece should traditionally be, since everything is in “a nice, neat locked case,” she’s impressed with what the artists brought to “Day of the Dead.”

“I think what these guys did and their commentaries and some of the politics they brought in and political statements and social statements is really keen and smart work,” she said.