The latest film in Getty’s Artist Dialogues series features Ofelia Esparza and her daughter, Rosanna Esparza Ahrens, whose multigenerational practice of creating ofrendas, or altars, weaves together memory, customs, and community. Long recognized for their role in helping establish and sustain Día de los Muertos traditions in the city, the Esparzas have shaped the practice as both a communal ritual and a contemporary art form. In the short film, Ofelia and Rosanna Esparza: Made to Remember (11:55 min), they reflect on the ofrenda as both cultural obligation and art: a bridge between the living and the dead, and between the stories of generations past and those yet to come.
Ofelia, born in East Los Angeles in 1932, learned the practice from her mother, who brought her traditions from Huanimaro, Mexico. She has spent decades building elaborate ofrendas that honor ancestors through handmade paper flowers, textiles, photographs, objects and layered narratives grounded in the conviction that to be forgotten is the most final death of all. Rosanna carries this legacy forward, exploring how the making itself, the gathering, the storytelling, the shared labor, is as much the offering as the altar it produces.
Together, Ofelia and Rosanna illuminate the ofrenda as a form of ephemeral art: carefully composed with attention to focal point, dimension, and material, yet always temporary by design. Here, conservation carries different meaning than it typically does in cultural heritage contexts. Rather than relying on permanence, the artform is sustained through intergenerational continuity, carried forward by storytelling, teaching and community solidarity.
Following the screening, Ofelia and Rosanna Esparza will join Los Angeles County's Civic Art Conservation and Collections Manager Laleña Vellanoweth for a conversation on the conservation of their work and audience Q&A.
Artist Dialogues is part of the Getty Conservation Institute's Art in L.A. project, exploring art, conservation, and Los Angeles' cultural heritage. This film was conceived in collaboration with independent curator jill moniz.
