Barcelona is already preparing for its main festival, which comes loaded with novelties, and also records. For the first time, La Mercè will reach each and every one of Barcelona's ten districts; for the first time, the poster will not just be a poster, but a large-scale mural that will remain in the city; for the first time, the Piromusical will be held at Platja del Bogatell —due to works in Montjuïc— and, for the first time, the guest city will come from the Far East: Shanghai.
The Chinese megalopolis will be responsible for another of this edition's novelties and records: it will land in the city with nearly 120 artists, as explained by the mayor, Jaume Collboni, in a presentation framed by the Palauet Albéniz. "Barcelona and Shanghai have been twinned for 25 years, with a long tradition of economic and cultural cooperation," which will now translate into La Mercè with Chinese dragons in the Fórum, circus, music, dance, pyrotechnics, and drones, "evidently."
The presence of more than a hundred Chinese artists and the volume of performances planned by the guest city will make it possible to bring La Mercè for the first time to all districts of the city —last year Les Corts and Sarrià-Sant Gervasi were left out—. "They will perform on stages throughout Barcelona, with an inspiring program of music, dance, and acrobatics," detailed the Consul General of China in Barcelona, Meng Yuhong.
Furthermore, in a year of multiple anniversaries —the World Capital of Architecture, the Gaudí Year, the European Capital of Proximity Trade—, the city has designed a Mercè that embraces all these facets. All of them are reflected in a proclamation to vindicate local and emblematic commerce, and in a poster that winks at architecture, by Cinta Vidal. Recognizable buildings dotted with symbols of the festival that intertwine serve as a stage for encounters and traditions that star in the poster. "It requires a third or even a fourth look to discover elements," as the artist explained.
To observe the poster with the required detail, it will not only be on paper or a screen: Vidal has depicted it in a 33-square-meter mural in the Francisco Candel Library, in the La Marina neighborhood. After more than 120 hours of work by Vidal and his team, the mural will not disappear when the festivities end; on the contrary, it has been designed to endure in the city. As Collboni explained, the initiative draws from Mexico's muralist tradition, which Barcelona encountered when it traveled to the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) as a guest city.
And just as architecture will be a protagonist, so too will local commerce. The announcers for La Mercè will be the owner of Celler de Gelida, Toni Falgueras, and his daughter Meritxell, the fifth generation at the helm of the family business. "The first generation came from Gelida with a cart to sell bulk wine," explained Toni, on a day of coincidences: the announcement was made coinciding with his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife, who did not attend to care for their grandchildren (perhaps, the sixth generation).
As Meritxell highlighted, Toni and his father were born in the shop that is still active in Sants after more than 130 years since Gelida wine arrived in the city by cart. "We wanted to pay tribute to the work done and the service you provide to Sants and the city," Collboni emphasized. At the same time, their proclamation aims to be "a tribute to all the merchants of the city," as well as to gastronomy and Catalan wines, as the mayor added.
New developments throughout the city
With the program yet to be unveiled and many details still to be made public, La Mercè is already announcing some new features: it will inaugurate a new space in Glòries dedicated to family shows; it will offer an exhibition of Mercè posters from the 70s to provide a historical overview of the main festival and, coinciding with Any Gaudí, Park Güell will host traditional music and dances with the city's esbarts dansaires.
But the novelties don't end there: this year will see the premiere of the Porta de l'Infern which will welcome the Mercè correfoc, and the Piromusical will leave its traditional Maria Cristina stage to be held at Platja del Bogatell. "The entire Montjuïc mountain is already entering a transformation phase due to the commemoration of the centenary of the 1929 International Exhibition," which will bring the closing fireworks of the festival to the sea. This year, for the third time, the Piromusical will have a recognized figure behind it, just as Rosalia was first and then Estopa. But the name, like so many other details of the Mercè, are yet to be revealed.