Postcard from Mexico Art Week

EVENTS | HAPPENINGS | WORLD OF CABANA

In recent years, Mexico City has taken center stage for the international art and design community, but during Art Week, that idea feels more accurate than ever. Across the city, art is performed, inhabited, and set into motion. The week becomes a series of acts, each one revealing a different layer of the city’s creative identity, writes Kate Berry as she takes a front row seat.

BY KATE BERRY | HAPPENINGS | 10 APRIL 2026 

Studio Federico Stefanovich © Alejandro Ramirez Orozco.

I arrived in Mexico by way of a few restorative days on a quiet stretch of the Yucatán coast. You drive through a dense jungle of tropical greenery before arriving at an unassuming, almost hidden paradise: Hotel Esencia. It feels less like a hotel and more like stepping into someone’s private world. The interiors are drawn from the owner’s personal collection of furniture and art, and nothing feels overworked or overly styled. There is an ease to it, but also a sense of intention in the way things are placed. 

What I find so compelling about Esencia is that it doesn’t stop at aesthetics. There is a real commitment to cultural programming, and that carried straight into art week. Together with AGO Projects, they co-hosted a dinner that brought an international mix of artists, curators, and designers into the same orbit. It felt like a soft beginning before the intensity of the city, a bridge between the calm of the coast and what was about to unfold in Mexico City. By the time I landed in the Mexican capital, everything had shifted. The tempo, the energy, the density.

Hotel Esencia, a hidden paradise on a quiet stretch of the Yucatán coast.

Anchored by Zona Maco, founded in 2002, Art Week has expanded into something much bigger, with fairs like Material and a constant stream of exhibitions, installations, and gatherings happening across the city. But what really defines it is not just the scale, it is how fluid it all feels. Lunch turns into late afternoon, which turns into dinner, which turns into something else entirely. Conversations move easily between disciplines, generations, and cities. That idea of the city “taking center stage” came into focus in a very literal way at the Escuela del Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernández.

Inside this historic space, a site specific presentation curated by María Dolores Uribe of Studio84 unfolded almost like a live set. Collectible design was placed within a scenographic environment and activated through performance. The performances, directed by Mauricio Ascencio, began with the distant sound of horns moving through an installation by cc tapis and the artist Scarlette Rouge, alongside sculptural pieces by Sabine Marcelis.

Intergenerational female folkloric dancers and horn players moved through the space, guiding the audience down toward the theater and stage, where new works from UNNO Gallery, including Alana Burns, Lucía Echavarría, and Andrea Vargas Dieppa, were presented. Echavarría’s dressing room, wrapped in Colombian and Mexican textiles, felt intimate and immersive. Vargas Dieppa’s seating and lighting carried a quiet sensuality, while Burns’s daybed and lighting, made with century old abalone shells, caught the light in a soft, almost otherworldly way. It shifted everything.

What could have been a static installation became something alive, a moment where design, craft, and performance moved fully in harmony. From there, I crossed the city for Vogue Latin America Editor-in-Chief Karla Martínez’s annual lunch at Cantina del Bosque, which has become a ritual during the week. The space itself, with its old world charm, is anything but quiet. Cantinas were once male dominated, with women either excluded or tucked away in separate sections. Now you have Karla hosting a table that feels completely of the moment. Artists, editors, designers, friends, all mixed together. Mezcal flowing, tacos constantly arriving, the room full of energy and conversation in that very particular Mexico City way.

Later, at AGO Projects, the focus shifted back to the work itself. The gallery operates almost like a studio, pairing designers with artisans, and there is always this underlying dialogue between contemporary design and traditional craft. During Art Week they presented Lanza Atelier’s Azul y Verde, with furniture made from reused materials like rebar and sailcloth. The pieces felt raw but also very resolved, with the process still visible in the final form.

The week really began with a dinner at Máximo Bistrot, co-hosted by AGO Projects, Hotel Esencia, Collé, and Loto Desure. It drew a mix of local and international guests and felt like a true starting point, where everyone began to intersect. Chef Eduardo García’s menu came out in a steady flow: kampachi tartare, small tamales, red snapper with chiles beurre blanc, bright herbaceous salads. It was generous and relaxed at the same time, and conversation carried easily across the table late into the night. In between all of this, there were quieter moments that stay with you just as much.

Left: Pol Agusti and his chairs. Right: Vignettes of Pol's creations from miniature furniture crafted from feathers to functional ceramic sculptures @ Raquel Franco

A visit to Pol Agustí’s home, where his chairs, inspired by medieval characters, felt almost like they carried their own personalities. Time with Federico Stefanovich, whose Salina Collection takes forms from the aquatic world and translates them into sculptural lighting that glows through cast fiberglass. His work sits somewhere between digital and handmade, organic and geometric. And then, the city itself.

Sitting outside at Rosetta for lunch, sunlight moving across the table. A visit to Xinú, where scent becomes something spatial. Stops at Casa Onora, which reimagines traditional Mexican techniques in textiles, ceramics, and woodwork. And everywhere, this presence of flora. Plants spilling into courtyards, softening interiors, climbing walls, blurring the line between inside and out. It gives the city ease, a sense that even the most designed spaces are still alive.

Pensión, a unique stay by Savvy Studio © Lucia Bell. 

Pensión by Savvy Studio, just above Casa Bosques in Roma Norte, is another place that stays with you. With ten entirely unique rooms, each is filled with custom pieces designed by Savvy, creating a sense of total immersion. The walls are lined with photographs he has taken around the world, so you feel almost transported into these different scenes.

You wake up to the scent of chocolate being made downstairs, drifting softly through the space. A small café, books, and chocolate made on site add to the atmosphere. It feels intimate, creative, and completely of the neighborhood.

What stays with me most, though, is the sense of permeability. Art and design are not confined to galleries here. They move through the city, through people, through daily life. Mexico City truly performs Art Week, and it all feels completely alive.

Studio Federico Stefanovich © Alejandro Ramirez Orozco.