We began the week with private studio visits to two of Mérida’s most incisive contemporary artists: Fritzia Irizar and Oscar M. García.
Fritzia Irizar’s practice confronts notions of value—monetary, symbolic, and speculative. Working with materials like salt, diamonds, and currency, she builds complex systems of exchange, belief, and desire. Her conceptual installations resist easy interpretation and instead ask us to reflect on the invisible forces—economic, political, and cultural—that shape how we assign worth. In our conversation, Irizar shared insights into her process and history of exhibiting across institutions in Mexico, the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. Her work reminded us that even the most tangible materials carry narratives shaped by power and myth.
Later, we visited the studio of Oscar M. García, whose work addresses migration, political corruption, and social rupture through metaphor and material experimentation. From painting with graphite to mixed media, his work holds space for reflection on memory, loss, and the emotional weight of systems often left unspoken. García generously walked us through his evolving practice and the socio-political landscape that informs it, offering an important lens through which to understand Mérida’s contemporary scene.
We closed the residency with a celebratory Open Studio at the Casa Caché house. Our final evening brought together friends, curators, and local collaborators for a night of conversation, mezcal (generously provided by La Botellería), and a beautiful meal prepared by Chef Sara Arnaud. The cohort shared the works-in-progress developed during the residency—ranging from photography and sculpture to weaving and conceptual interventions. It was an evening marked by generosity, reflection, and gratitude for the dialogues that emerged across disciplines, cultures, and languages.
We are deeply proud of our third cohort and grateful to all who contributed to making this residency possible. Casa Caché remains committed to cultivating spaces of creative exchange and research rooted in place, history, and collaboration. Stay tuned for more highlights—and thank you for being part of the journey.
Week 3 continued with an inspiring visit to the studio and hacienda of artist, designer, and creative visionary Angela Damman. (@angeladammanyucatan )
Tucked into the countryside of Yucatán, Angela’s property functions as both home and workshop—an integrated space where art, agriculture, and ancestral knowledge coexist. Her practice centers on transforming native henequén and sansevieria plants into refined, handwoven luxury goods.
The cohort toured her working hacienda, gaining firsthand insight into the complete production cycle—from cultivation to processing, drying, dyeing, combing, and weaving—each step carried out on-site with a profound commitment to sustainability and cultural preservation.
At the core of Angela’s work is her longstanding collaboration with local artisans. Together, they have reimagined traditional techniques into contemporary forms, creating a regenerative model that uplifts rural economies while honoring generations of material wisdom. Her transparency, generosity, and passion for slow design left a lasting impression on the cohort.
After the visit, the group made a quick detour to the Gulf of Mexico, walking the shores of Telchac before returning to Mérida ahead of a passing tropical storm.
Back in the city, the cohort reconvened at Centro Cultural Olimpo, one of Mérida’s most significant art institutions, located in the heart of the historic downtown. There, Casa Caché partner Nelson Ramírez de Arellano Conde
(@nelson_ramirez_de_arellano ) delivered a compelling public lecture on the Havana Biennial, providing insight into its curatorial frameworks, political complexities, and cultural legacy. Drawing from his leadership as Director of the Havana Biennial, Nelson shared critical context alongside personal reflections, deepening the cohort’s understanding of how contemporary art moves across geographic, cultural, and ideological borders.
Week 3 at Casa Caché unfolded with expanded fieldwork and intimate studio visits, reinforcing the residency’s ethos of contextual immersion and cross-cultural dialogue.
Our journey began at Chichén Itzá, the monumental heart of Maya cosmology and urban design. As residents moved through the shadowed geometry of El Castillo and traced glyphs along the ball court walls, discussions emerged around time, language, ritual, and architecture as systems of power and memory. The resonance between past and present—between stone and idea—was palpable.
Afterward, the cohort stopped in the town of Kaua for a communal lunch at La Tía de Kaua. Local dishes like poc chucand encamisado were shared family-style, grounding the day in flavor, hospitality, and the textures of Yucatecan daily life.
Midweek brought a private visit to the home and studio of artist Monica Rezman (@monicarezman ), whose practice bridges textile history, abstraction, and narrative form. An internationally exhibited artist, Monica welcomed the cohort into her lush garden studio, where we explored her use of found materials and process-based layering. Her stories—from Chicago to Mérida—offered a model of lifelong engagement with material and place. Conversations touched on tactility, gendered labor, and how intuitive form-making can translate embodied experience.
As Monica prepared for her upcoming group exhibition in Oaxaca, residents left feeling inspired by her rigor, warmth, and commitment to a practice rooted in global movement and deep local presence.
Week 3 was a reminder that research can live in ruins, kitchens, conversations, and studios. As Casa Caché continues to deepen its dialogue across borders and generations, these connections—both intentional and unexpected—form the heart of the residency.
We closed Week 2 on home ground with a communal dinner at Casa Caché, opening our courtyard to Merida’s wider creative ecosystem—designers, curators, collectors, and cultural pioneers who have shaped the peninsula’s art discourse. Over a wood-fired menu crafted by chef Sara Arnaud, residents shared work-in-progress, exchanged studio notes, and mapped potential collaborations stretching from the Yucatán to San Antonio, Havana, Taipei, and Laredo.
The evening served its purpose as a living laboratory: testing how far a conversation can travel when place, palate, and practice converge. Talk of pigment recipes, border poetics, and cinematic close-ups dissolved into the pulse of cumbia sets by Amantes del Futuro, reminding us that research sometimes begins—with equal rigor—on the dance floor.
As plates cleared and rhythms lingered, new bridges felt not theoretical but tangible, setting the cohort in motion for coastal fieldwork and community workshops to come. Week 3, we’re ready for you.
Week 2 recap: Casa Caché in Mérida (studio edition)
After charting the city’s institutional terrain, the cohort shifted into close-up mode, entering three very different workspaces where material, memory, and myth are negotiated daily.
We began at the Mérida compound of Jorge Pardo (Havana, 1963). MacArthur recipient and architect of atmospheres, Pardo treats light and color like building blocks. Surrounded by CNC routers, laser cutters, woodshops, and a sea of Pantone swatches, he guided us through prototypes for forthcoming shows at Petzel (New York) and Galerie Capitain (Naples). Discussion ranged from Cuban Modernism to the logistics of shipping eighty custom lamps—proof that form, function, and freight are inseparable in 2025. Pardo also reflected on finding beauty in accidents and adapting to the unexpected.
Next stop: the bamboo- and mango-lined studio of Gerda Gruber (Bratislava, 1940). After arriving in Mexico in 1975—and founding UNAM’s first clay workshop—Gruber has spent decades translating Yucatán’s botany into porcelain, metal, fiber, and wood. Works in progress for her upcoming solo at MARCO Monterrey revealed bronze root systems and bird nests woven from local henequén. Her trajectory offered the cohort a lesson in longevity: evolve the language, keep the pulse.
Our final visit took us to Rafiki Sánchez, whose practice hovers between sculpture, garment, and land art. Mannequins draped in henequén fiber stood beside video stills of lone figures traversing salt flats in cocoon-like forms. Sánchez spoke of indumentaria protectora—clothing as shelter, protest, and prophecy—linking Maya trade routes to contemporary Fashion Revolution ethics.
Three studios, three vocabularies, one through-line: material intelligence grounded in Yucatán’s landscape and charged with global urgency.
Week 2 recap: Casa Caché in Mérida
Fresh from our first encounters with craft and ritual, the cohort turned its lens toward the city’s contemporary voices.
We opened at Centro Cultural del Mayab, where photographer Mina Bárcenas anchors the group exhibition El cielo es el límite. Her panoramas of Mérida’s shifting skyline set the tone for a conversation on image, place, and aspiration—fitting for Photography Month in Yucatán.
Next, local painter Ernesto García Sánchez welcomed us into a studio alive with tape lines, custom grids, and hand-mixed pigments. His methodical process—equal parts mathematics and meditation—sparked lively debate on structure versus spontaneity.
An afternoon at UNAY, Universidad de las Artes de Yucatán, gave a forward glance at the region’s academic pulse. Touring the newly renovated print, metal, and media labs, we encountered Laberinto, a solo by Mauricio Baudilio that blurs sound, algorithm, and corporeal gesture.
Day two unfolded at Galería Secreta with our partner Mario Torre. Inside, La suerte está echada by Francisco Gonceimmersed us in neon-tinted oils and welded steel totems—a vivid meditation on chance and destiny. Upstairs, studio visits with Alexa Torre and Jimmy Bonachea probed gendered color codes, migratory myth, and the astronaut as twenty-first-century trickster.
Across town, Soho Gallery gathered us around Artists Without Borders by Assata Akil, whose mixed-media portraits reclaim diasporic memory through quilt fragments and hand-stitched text.
We closed at Salón Gallos: Isla, a large-scale abstraction by Fernando García Correa, met an immersive performance by Carn Crua that braided Yucatecan trova with electronic drones—reminding us that sound, like land, can hold multiple temporalities at once.
From emergent practices to institutional hubs, Week 2 deepened our commitment to situating every studio gesture within Mérida’s layered cultural matrix. Week 2 promises field research along the coast—articulating new lines between landscape, migration, and myth. Stay tuned.
Building on our first days in Mérida, the cohort closed Week 1 with a sweeping itinerary that traced Yucatán’s past, present, and emerging voices.
Izamal | Pueblo Mágico
We began in the ochre-washed town of Izamal, touring the 16th-century Convento de San Antonio de Padua before stopping at Coqui Coqui Izamal for a fragrance atelier walk-through led by perfumer Luca. The visit foregrounded the region’s synesthetic blend of architecture, ritual, and botanical lore.
Communal Dinner | Kanché
That evening we gathered under the ceiba tree at Kanché for our first communal meal. Guest chefs Thalía Barrios and Jesús Neftalí of Oaxaca’s Michelin-starred Levadura de Olla crafted a five-course homage to milpa traditions, paired with small-batch mezcals from Los Ocotales. Conversation flowed from culinary anthropology to material ecologies, reinforcing Casa Caché’s commitment to multidisciplinary exchange.
Noche Blanca | Mérida Centro
Returning to the city for Noche Blanca, we joined the opening of Galería Secreta at El Olimpo Cultural Center, where a retrospective of Yucatecan painter Gabriel Ramírez charted five decades of regional surrealism. Downtown Mérida pulsed with performers, pop-up studios, and midnight museum hours—an ideal backdrop for residents to map new collaborative possibilities.
Studio Visit | Finca Negra
Week 1 concluded on Sunday at Finca Negra, the countryside workspace of artists Duncan Zhivago and Vanessa Zárate. Duncan shared prototypes for his forthcoming exhibition at Collector Gallery (Dallas, TX), while Vanessa discussed her research into pigment extraction from endemic flora.
From colonial atriums to experimental studios, these encounters have grounded our residents in Yucatán’s layered cultural fabric. Week 2 promises deep dives into ecologies, vernacular weaving, and film archives—stay tuned for more insight from Casa Caché’s summer session.
Week 1 continued with a deep dive into Yucatán’s converging histories of craft, architecture, and ritual.
Our first stop was Fundación Plantel Matilde, the sculptural compound created by renowned artist Javier Marín. Nestled in Sac Chich, the brutalist-minimalist complex—carved from local limestone and framed by lush ceiba trees—serves as both studio and think-tank for regional makers. Our friend Bea led a private tour, guiding the cohort through Marín’s monumental works and residency facilities while discussing the foundation’s commitment to material research and community engagement.
A short walk brought us to the Sac Chich Ceramic Studio, where resident potters demonstrated wood-fired kilns, natural pigments, and contemporary forms grounded in Maya techniques. Conversations quickly turned to sustainability, scale, and the alchemy of clay—topics that will inform several artists’ projects in the weeks ahead.
In the afternoon we traveled to Acanceh, climbing the partially restored pyramid to take in the surrounding pueblo and reflect on the continuity between ancient urban planning and today’s social fabric. Sketchbooks filled with motifs drawn from carved masks and stucco friezes.
We closed the day at Salón Gallos, a 19th-century warehouse now reimagined as a hybrid gallery, brewery, and performance space. Over local ale and live music, the cohort mapped out collaborative ideas sparked by the week’s encounters.
From avant-garde foundations to pre-Colonial ruins, these first excursions underscore Casa Caché’s mission: situating contemporary practice within the layered context of place and fostering dialogue that transcends time and discipline. More discoveries await as we move into Week 2—stay tuned.
Casa Caché – Summer 2025: Third Cohort Week 1 Recap, Mérida, Yucatán
This June we launched our third Casa Caché residency in Mérida, welcoming a new group of artists whose practices span sculpture, film, textile, and research. Week 1 unfolded as an energetic immersion into Yucatán’s contemporary scene and layered history.
We opened the program with a private walkthrough of Centro Cultural La Cúpula (@lacupulamerida ), where director Diana Castillo @diacastillo23 introduced current exhibitions by local artists Sebastián Dávila @sebastiandavilaart and Edgar Canul . Their works—rooted in regional craft and experimental media—sparked a lively dialogue on material memory and de-colonial narratives, setting the tone for the weeks ahead.
Midweek the cohort explored Mérida’s historic core, pausing inside the 16th-century cathedral to reflect on the city’s Maya-Spanish palimpsest. A spontaneous encounter with the living jewel maquech beetles reminded us how tradition and myth still animate everyday life here.
We closed the evening at Lagarto de Oro @lagartodeoro where conversations migrated from studio strategies to Yucatecan gastronomy over mezcal-infused cocktails. Throughout these first days, residents sketched, photographed, and recorded field notes—already mapping intersections between personal practice and place.
Casa Caché remains committed to bridging artistic communities across the Americas. We cannot wait to see how Mérida’s textures, stories, and collaborators will shape the work of this cohort in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more updates from Yucatán’s vibrant summer of art.
Casa Caché is pleased to announce Gil Rocha ( @rocha.rochelli ) as a resident artist for our Mérida program. Raised on the U.S.–Mexico border, Gil repurposes beer cans, plastic bags, faded photographs, and other cast-off materials into mixed-media assemblages that explore migration, identity, and survival. His text-driven sculptures and installations reveal the border as a fluid, complex space—one of beauty and brutality, decay and renewal. During the residency, Gil will continue transforming ordinary objects into powerful narratives that challenge viewers to rethink notions of division and possibility. We are excited to host his compelling perspective in dialogue with the cultural landscape of Yucatán.
Join us in welcoming Anna Kuo ( @sputnikuo ) to our third Casa Caché cohort. A Taiwanese-American film director and photographer, Anna creates music videos, documentaries, and experimental films that uncover emotional depths in the everyday. Her work—recognized by NOWNESS ASIA, Vimeo Staff Pick, 1.4 Awards, and COP26—uses intimate close-ups to blur the line between the tactile and the transcendent, revealing hidden currents beneath ordinary gestures. While in Mérida, Anna will continue exploring how places evolve through personal and collective histories, bringing her keen eye for overlooked detail to new visual narratives rooted in Yucatán’s rich environment. We look forward to the stories she will capture and share.
We are delighted to welcome Doerte Weber ( @weberdoerte ) to Casa Caché’s Summer 2025 cohort in Mérida. A self-taught artist inspired by the Bauhaus women weavers, Doerte transforms overlooked materials into intricately patterned textiles that merge past and present. Her tactile works draw on traditional weaving while probing the quiet beauty of everyday life, inviting viewers to reflect on the enduring threads that bind our shared histories. We look forward to seeing how Doerte’s practice will evolve during her time in Yucatán and how the region’s colors, textures, and stories will weave their way into her new work.
