National Museum of Death

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The importance of historical-anthropological studies on the phenomenon of death in Mexican culture is indisputable. That is why this museum seeks to take its visitors on a journey through the concept we have had of death over the last 500 years.

The area occupied by the museum was originally a Franciscan convent attached to the Temple of San Diego. In the mid-20th century, it was home to the Administration School of the Autonomous Institute of Science and Technology, which in 1973 would become the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, which is why this is considered its first home.

The museum was opened on June 19, 2007 by the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, as a cultural space that houses the personal collection of Octavio Bajonero Gil, donated to the university, whose thematic axis is death, its iconography, symbolism and the different mortuary practices existing in Mexico.

It was in 2014 when this museum expanded its offer with the idea of ​​making an aesthetic journey through graphic arts that have death as their theme, from pre-Hispanic art, through New Spain lithographs, popular art and engraving, as well as contemporary pieces that reveal the different relationships that we as a society have had with this often painful subject.

The image of the National Museum of Death (MUMU) rescues the renewed and festive personality of the iconography of death and funerary art in Mexico, with a reminder of the traditional and colorful manifestations of death, such as papel picado and sugar skulls.

The Museum is distributed in three areas of the university heritage: the “19 de junio” Building, the “C.P. Humberto Martínez León” Building and the “J. Jesús Gómez Portugal” Building. Here you will find, in addition to the permanent rooms, the Multipurpose Room, which is a gallery that temporarily exhibits works by different local, national and international artists and which are a sample of the vision of death in the art of our days.

In 2023, it was reopened after an intensive remodeling that aimed to provide the museum with much more interactive spaces, as well as innovative educational resources that make your visit much more entertaining.

Learn more about this museum on its social networks: facebook.com/munalmueruaa