Altar focuses on themes of cultural diversity, loss, familial relationships, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ relationships. Santiago weaves these elements to understand the complexity of finding one’s voice in displacement.

Eugenio is a queer young immigrant living in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. Less than a year has passed since his move from Mexico, but in that time he experienced deep love and deeper heartbreak. Eugenio decides to build an altar in the hopes that he will be able to summon his boyfriend’s “ghost” to sort out the end of their relationship once and for all. As he builds it, Eugenio realizes that he has been something of a ghost himself to the loved ones he left behind in Mexico.