Free (iTunes) Día de los Muertos: Day of the Dead [Mexican Arts & Culture History]

[ATDrake]

Well, something topical for the Hallowe'en weekend.

Día de los Muertos: Day of the Dead is the commemorative multimedia e-book edition of a virtual museum exhibit held last year on the subject of the popular Mexican holiday (Wikipedia) and briefly touching on the arts in Mexico and Latin America in general by the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum in collaboration with the University of Texas El Paso and the Second Life gaming community, free courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

They've an accompanying website which contains some of the text and images which explain the origins of some of the customary core practices surrounding the day(s), such as the background beliefs and things like the offrenda (the special altar commemorating one's deceased).

However, the Made For iBooks version goes into far more detail on all those things, as well as providing more photogalleries of offrendas and calavera-style make-up , pop-up profiles of influential Latino artists and cultural figures over the decades, as well as video clips giving interviews with artists who make DDLM-themed artwork, explanations and performance clips of Aztec and other traditional dances, an animation short meant to explain the customs to kids, virtual poetry readings in English and Spanish (no subtitles, unfortunately), and more.

I should mention that the text and almost all the multimedia portions are in English, though there are some Spanish bits in there as well.

Permanently free @ iTunes (available to Canadians, and presumably free worldwide as well, at least in the major countries I spot-checked [alas, Iceland, you miss out on this one]).

NB: This is a Made for iBooks multimedia e-book which will require a compatible iDevice/sufficiently advanced Mac to view. It's also around 600 megs in size, so you don't want to download this over 3G.

There's also a bit more info on last year's event over at this press release here, which also links to additional support sites for the exhibit over on Tumblr and elsewhere. Apparently, they may be making this an annual event, judging from the top banner advertising another SLVM/UTEP virtual festival this year.

And this has been the selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook thread of the day.

Because educational. And awesome. Though in need of occasional subtitles for the non-hispanophone Gentle Listeners in the audience. And they could use a slightly larger and less squinty font while they were at it.

But aside from that, it really is a nicely presented and informative exhibit.

Enjoy!

Description
An interactive transmedia book focusing on Latino culture and the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Festival.