Five scarred and disfigured dolls dressed in bridal gowns laid on the threshold of miniature churches, while viewers read the horrifying stories of loss and betrayal that plagued them.

“Their story—of the vestiges of love left on shattered hearts—will be immortalized as we give offerings upon altars of disappointment, dismay and darkness,” said artist Lia Tealdi-Heinbach, whose recent wedding to Bjorn Heinbach allowed the pair of them to create the staggering altar and expose their powerful fears of marriage and death.

The Day of the Dead holiday, known as Día de Los Muertos, rose during the times of the Olmec, Aztec and Mayan empires in Mexico and has spread across most of the Americas.

While local and international artists alike celebrate the holiday through traditional altars, others, like the Heinbachs, evoke contemporary and distinctly different interpretations from their native nations.

The couple’s “Bridge of Misfortune” is one of several dozen pieces installed for “Digital Offerings for the Altar of Life.” The exhibit was organized by the SomArts Cultural Center and other San Francisco art venues to showcase both eclectic and traditional Day of the Dead altars and encompass methods of celebrating mourning and death from across the globe.

The month-long event combines the digital and the physical, hosting 8-by-8 foot pieces in SomArts’ expansive warehouse, while also giving hundreds of other professional and amateur artists from other countries the ability to submit photographs of their own art online.

“It’s definitely an experiment,” said Curator Rio Yañez, who has been offering the in-person exhibit for almost a decade, but added the digital gallery this year—just to see what he’d get.

The high-resolution photos uploaded to the free, digital gallery will be printed and posted for the duration of the exhibit, giving a platform to international and amateur artists to highlight their ways of cultural mourning. So far, Yañez has received everything from Italian catacombs covered in flowers and crosses to brightly painted skeletons from participants in Latin America.

Aside from honoring the dead, the exhibit has also become a platform for other artistic grievances. Today’s threats of global warming and the dire circumstances of the earth’s water supply were a common undercurrent, running parallel to timeless problems like love, murder, death and life.

Victor Mario Zaballa’s traditional altar was an effective non-verbal explanation of the holiday. Composed in neon paint, slowly wilting flowers, a hodge-podge of his loved ones’ photos and brightly colored paper against the tarnished frames of Roman Catholic icons, it honored those who died in two massacres centuries apart.

A sketching of the 16th century Spanish killings of indigenous people was disturbingly similar, Zaballa said, to a 1969 photograph taken during a student protest in Mexico City. Many Mexicans believe the police killed students to keep them quiet during the Olympic Games set to commence just days later, he said.

Peruvian artist Susan Aragon approached the exhibit with Peru’s recent water woes in mind, forcing viewers to take a moment to “feel the power of nature,” Aragon said. In the 1990s, Peru adopted World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank “reforms” to its water supply industry. One result, according to nonprofit group Public Citizen, was a cholera epidemic that caused thousands of deaths.

Aragon brought in a large glass tank of water with white glittering rocks beneath it. The ambient sound of water and the soft, dream-like colors of a projector infiltrated the water, reflected on the rocks and four mirrors to form a whimsical, glistening cave and a “homage to the water of life,” Aragon said, as light bounced onto the surrounding walls, creating round and tear-dropped shapes and shadows.

Aragon’s altar wasn’t the only interactive piece. In fact, most of the artists encouraged participation. Candi Falice’s installment was a tribute to luck, the chances life gives us, and the horrors of addictions, she said. Falice said she gathered inspiration from her own family and friends’ addictions, which reinforced her belief that luck and chance are significant in life.

Two artists, Elizabeth Addison and Marcy Voyevod, were struck by the poignant method many Jews use to mark the graves of loved ones. In Jewish cemeteries across the world it is common to find “dofek,” or pebbles, next to headstones—both as an offering to the deceased and to show they have visited.

Addison and Voyevod made rubbings of tombstones from a Jewish cemetery and recreated the headstones, grass, lighting and even the leaves. Although pebbles are left year-round, the visual effect is much like the Day of the Dead altars. Exhibit viewers added their own pebbles in remembrance of their loved ones.

One altar was both traditional and new to commemorate the late director of SomArts, Jack Davis. The piece exhibited ancestral offerings of flowers in addition to his personal items and favorite tools: Chip Clips, ropes and other, unidentifiable objects.

Ann Schnake started an altar to her own life but it turned out to be an altar to life—everyone’s life. It explored the question “what do we live by that’s ill-chosen or well-chosen,” the artist said.

“One person doesn’t have a life well-lived and another person doesn’t have a poorly lived life,” said Schnake. “Everyone has a bit of both.”

In Schnake’s altar, cubbyholes with words ranging from love to humor were interspersed with a small Buddha statue and baby dolls; digital clocks reminded viewers that time may not end, but life will; and viewers cast ballots and pennies to whichever virtue or activity was the most important in life.

“Art [is made] partially to alleviate long-stewing ideas—and partially as a social experiment,” Schnake said.

The exhibit will run until Nov. 3 at the SomArts Cultural Center. Images from the digital and physical gallery will be projected on the Mission Cultural Center exterior wall during the Dia de los Muertos procession on Nov. 2 and selections of the high-resolution art will be displayed and rotated at the exhibit until it closes.

For more information, visit www.digitalofferings2007.com.