Mérida’s First Biennial: A Conversation with Founder Catherine Petitgas

Mérida is about to host Mexico’s first international contemporary art biennial. Vocal, the inaugural edition of the Bienal de Yucatán, brings seventy-five artists together across fifteen venues, from a 16th-century convent to the Pueblo Mágico of Maní. It is exactly the kind of art encounter we build our journeys around: slow, rooted in place, and led by the people who know it best.

We spoke with Catherine Petitgas, founder of the Bienal de Yucatán, about how a long-held dream became reality.

Mérida is about to host it's first international contemporary art biennial. How did this project come about, and why now?

Starting an international biennial in Mérida had been a dream of mine since I first came back to the city as an “Art Activist” in 2013. I used to talk to everyone about it, and I could tell they thought I wasn’t serious. But I was. I felt I needed to experiment on a smaller scale first. At the beginning of 2023, I met the Mérida-based artists Fritzia Irízar and Oscar García, who had been running a space for emerging art in the northwest of the country. Together we launched Proyecto Y, an initiative to help professionalize graduates leaving the local art school.

It coincided with a real effervescence in the local contemporary scene, and I think it succeeded in giving visibility and confidence to a new generation of artists, several of whom are now participating in the Bienal. I thought it would take another ten years at least to turn my beloved biennial dream into reality, but barely three years later, here we are!

Vocal unfolds across fifteen venues. What does this journey through the city offer?

I have to come clean: I’m a bit of a biennial addict. I have visited biennials around the world, supported many with funds and with my own time, and I currently sit on the boards of a couple. What I love is the treasure hunt: walking through an unknown city with a purpose, pushing a shabby door to discover a crumbling palazzo or a convent filled with mind-blowing contemporary art, getting hopelessly lost with failing GPS, and stopping for a delicious coffee, a fresh juice, or an unexpected gourmet lunch at a local joint. Mérida has all of this and more.

Local authorities have been incredibly generous in letting us use some of the most prominent venues of the Centro Histórico, and a few hidden jewels too. Even local audiences will have never seen more than half of them. The Bienal’s recorrido (circuit) takes visitors through time, from the 16th century to today. It also takes them through cultures, from the legacy of the ancient Maya to colonial times to today’s blended Yucatán, and through art history, with ultra-contemporary projects interspersed with historic shows, all against the buzz of one of Mexico’s fastest-growing cities. Art displayed in such a rich context takes on a meaning no museum can convey.

The Bienal brings together 75 artists, from Yoko Ono to Yucatecan artists on an international platform for the first time. Which conversations are you most looking forward to?

Ironically, the word Yucatán is said to derive from a total failure of dialogue. When the first Spaniards asked local people the name of the land, they answered “Uh yu ca ta’an”: “Listen to how they speak,” in total incomprehension. Helping restore exchange between local and foreign audiences is one of the main goals of the Bienal.

It would be hugely rewarding if, through the prism of language and poetry, the focus of this first edition, our public were inspired to reflect on identity and on preserving traditional roots, not just in Mérida or Yucatán but wherever local traditions are threatened by urban living and homogenisation. We are very privileged to work with the artist, curator, educator, and writer Abraham Cruzvillegas as Artistic Director. For Vocal, he has selected 75 artists, 33 of them non-Mexican, representing 20 nations where similar questions around original roots exist.

Mérida has quietly become one of the most dynamic cultural destinations in Latin America. What makes it such fertile ground today?

Mérida has one of the largest and most beautiful historic centers in Mexico, with colonial palacios, convents, and churches alongside Belle Époque mansions from the glory days of the henequen boom, and a few testimonies of Art Deco “Neomaya” architecture. It is so vast that it has been hard to preserve, and many areas remain derelict, which gives it its charm and makes it an ideal setting for a biennial.

Lately, tourism and rapid growth have threatened the identity of Yucatán through gentrification and real estate development. Art and culture have become a place of resistance. They are backed by the ambitious art school that became the University of the Arts of Yucatán (UNAY) in early 2024, by artist-run spaces and collectives, and by local institutions, especially the Secretary of Culture of the Government of Yucatán, the main champion of the Bienal. We hope the series of three editions we are launching will permanently transform the cultural scene of Yucatán.

What do you hope the lasting legacy of this first edition will be?

We’re often asked whether we plan to leave a sculpture or installation in public space to commemorate this first Bienal, but nothing could be further from our thinking. Our ambition is to strengthen the cultural ecosystem of Yucatán with lasting effects: helping to professionalize artists, gallerists, and art critics, and training and contracting specialists such as producers, installers, art handlers, and mediators so they can make a living from culture. A legacy of individuals dedicated to art is more likely to transform cultural life in the long run and to ensure the region’s historic patrimony is preserved to the highest standards.

For my part, it would be a joy if the Bienal helped visitors fall in love with Yucatán and Maya culture, with foreigners embracing the rich local traditions and locals rediscovering the unsung beauty of their own city.

Join us in Mérida

Experience Mérida’s art scene with IN SITU Art Club on a curated journey, January 27–31, 2027. Discover the Mérida, Yucatán trip and join us.