Day of the Dead Festival Returns: Artist Seeks New Home

Jose Mendez is moving his annual Día de los Muertos festival from Lake Worth Beach to West Palm Beach this year. The event, which has run for a decade, was canceled by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency after state grants were reduced. Mendez, a Lake Worth Beach artist and artist in residence with the No More Starving Artists Foundation, secured a new venue at The Peach Collective to keep the tradition alive.

Mendez co-founded the festival in 2016. Previous editions have drawn thousands of attendees, with the 2024 event hosting over 6,000 people. Last year’s attendance dropped as Immigration and Customs Enforcement increased arrests in Palm Beach County, a region where half of Lake Worth Beach residents are Hispanic or Latino. Mendez noted that while the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office assisted ICE, deputies also participated in a Mayan cultural celebration a month prior, creating a confusing dynamic for the community.

The rescheduled event will take place on Saturday, November 7, as part of the foundation’s monthly Art Walk. The budget is significantly smaller than in past years, with Mendez stating the group needs to raise $4,000 to cover costs. As of mid-October, the foundation had raised $250. Mendez said he asked the community for help to avoid relying on middlemen, allowing artists to lead the event directly.

The festival will feature outdoor art installations, including a mural, a giant heart sculpture, and a five-foot-tall alebrije. It will also include traditional sawdust carpets associated with religious celebrations in Guatemala and colorful ofrendas, or altars, honoring the dead. An art battle will pit 10 artists against each other for a $500 prize, with the winning works included in a later exhibition.

Mendez’s personal connection to the holiday dates back to his childhood in San Miguel Acatlán, Guatemala, where his family maintained Mayan indigenous heritage after moving to the United States when he was an infant. He began researching the holiday’s diverse regional traditions in 2012 after attending a parade in Fort Lauderdale. Since then, he has traveled to cities in the United States and Mexico to study indigenous practices, which now inform his teaching at Palm Beach State College and his art.

This year’s festival will be the first Mendez holds after the death of his father in September. Mendez is creating an ofrenda in his father’s honor that incorporates a memory of watching Mayan documentaries on VHS tapes in the 1990s. He plans to vote “no” on Florida’s Amendment 3, which is on the November 3 ballot, believing that eliminating non-school property taxes will further strain arts funding. Mendez intends to return the festival to Lake Worth Beach next year.

The event is located at 3950 Georgia Ave in West Palm Beach. Mendez said the festival will continue in Palm Beach County despite the financial and political uncertainties.