Greetings, ARLIS/NA Colleagues,

This is the third message from the highlights series of a conference-planning site visit to Mexico City, which follows previous posts from President Rebecca Price and President-Elect Rachel Resnik. While it was the first visit to Mexico City for both of them and they’ve superbly conveyed their experiences and excitement, it was a return visit for me.

My first trip to CDMX (Ciudad de México) was to attend the Texas-Mexico chapter’s annual meeting in fall 2016 —six years ago! The chapter’s “can-do” attitude was suitably matched with a metropolis that exceeded expectations by every measure, delivering rich and unforgettable experiences to all who attended. Myself, I fell in love with the bustle of such a large city that also provided quiet neighborhoods, parks, and courtyards, a density of museums near the conference hotel that might be unmatched anywhere else in North America, and, of course, the cuisine. My decade living in Houston taught me to love Tex-Mex but one week in CDMX made me realize it’s the Mex that I savor.

Go for the art, stay for the food. Or, just go for the food!

In 2018 I was celebrating a milestone birthday and my destination of choice: Mexico City. It had only been 1-½ years since that chapter meeting but even that was too long without the colors, sounds, art, music, people, and, yes, cuisine of CDMX. Many birthdays come and go but that was one I remember. I wasn’t alone: this coincided with the chapter’s decision to submit a proposal for Mexico City as a conference site. As a co-author of that submission, I can tell you that the proposal wrote itself on the merits of all that Mexico City has to offer the ARLIS/NA audience. 

16,000 hexagonal aluminum tiles housing 66,000 pieces of art! Photo: Museo Soumaya, Raystormxc (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

I’ve returned to Mexico City three more times since then (!) on visits with people for whom it’s their first time … and it’s always the same: they love it. My favorite thing about CDMX isn’t one attraction —it’s that, each time, the city reveals amazing aspects about itself. Maybe it’s an art collection or exhibition, maybe it’s a mural that I happen to view, often it’s a meal (paired with incredible Mexican wine), and usually, to my continued delight, it’s all of these things.

I can’t wait for this conference-planning process to culminate in just six months with hundreds of you there, many of you for the first time, all of you falling at least a little in love and being completely unable to name only one favorite thing.