Twenty Petal Flower 

For Día de Muertos in Flatiron & NoMad, Mestiz presents Twenty Petal Flower, an immersive installation inspired by the journey of the cempasúchil flower, from cultivation to ritual.

The project pays tribute to the agricultural workers who cultivate and harvest the flower across the fields of Michoacán, to the hands that gather and transform it into garlands and offerings, and to the ephemeral floral architectures that emerge each year in cemeteries throughout Mexico. Arches, crosses, altars, and funerary structures built from thousands of blossoms become temporary monuments of remembrance, existing only briefly before returning to the earth.

Drawing from these traditions, Mestiz reimagines the cempasúchil as both material and symbol. Through woven forms, scale, and lightness, the installation explores the transformation of a flower into architecture, and architecture into memory. Named after the Nahuatl word cempōhualxōchitl, meaning “twenty petal flower,” the installation celebrates the cultural and material legacy of the cempasúchil and the communities whose knowledge allows it to become a vessel for memory, ritual, and collective remembrance.

Twenty Petal Flower is an homage to the flower, the field, the maker, and the architectures of memory that appear each year during Día de Muertos.

Día de Muertos in the Press

NEW YORK, NY – Today, the Flatiron NoMad Partnership announced the return of its district-wide Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration, bringing Mexican art, culture and tradition to the heart of Manhattan. This year’s programming will center around Twenty Petal Flower, a newly-commissioned, site-specific community altar created through a cross-cultural collaboration between Mestiz Studio, founded by artist and designer Daniel Valero in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and Brooklyn-based Powerhouse Arts, set to be unveiled at the Partnership’s fifth annual Día de Muertos Celebration on October 28 alongside colorful public art and cultural community programming throughout the district. Now through November 5, residents, employees, students and visitors are invited to experience the sacred Mexican tradition through free public art, live cultural performances and opportunities to come together in the district.

“As we mark 20 years of the Flatiron NoMad Partnership, Día de Muertos reflects what we want our public spaces to be at their best: a destination where community members come together to share experiences and discover new lenses through which to see the district,” said James Mettham, President of the Flatiron NoMad Partnership. “This year, we are honored to collaborate with a Mexico-based team from Mestiz to create a custom altar for Flatiron NoMad and bring a tradition rooted in memory and craft into one of New York City’s most recognizable public spaces.”

Crafted across two cities, “Twenty Petal Flower” was created by Mestiz Studio and its workshop in San Miguel de Allende, in collaboration with Powerhouse Arts in Brooklyn, before arriving in the Flatiron North Plaza as a community altar for New Yorkers. Named for the Nahuatl cempōhualxōchitl, or “twenty petal flower,” the installation traces the cempasúchil from the fields of Michoacán to the artisans who transform it into temporary monuments of remembrance, reimagined through oversized woven floral forms arranged across a vibrant, tiered altar with warm, candle-like lighting.

“Flowers become an architecture of celebration,” said Daniel Valero, Founder of Mestiz Studio. “This year, we dedicate Twenty Petal Flower to the hands that cultivate, harvest, and transform the cempasúchil. We honor its full journey from the field to the ofrenda, where it becomes one of the most beautiful and essential elements of Día de Muertos.”

“At Powerhouse Arts, we are always looking for projects that marry cross-disciplinary expertise and artistic talent. Estudio Mestiz contributes a deep knowledge of woven, handmade form, and our role was to help amplify that sensibility to the scale of a public art installation. We are grateful to Flatiron NoMad for the opportunity to have contributed to this project. This very process of exchange between two workshops, two cities and two ways of making is where we in the Public Art department shine most,” said Brittni Collins, Director of Public Art at Powerhouse Arts.

Read the full press release, here.

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