Northern Californian Rogelio Manzo’s translucent images see through the people he creates. Brushstrokes show ghostly movement while the paint simultaneously disfigures the images. Each layer, like years in time, leaves an indelible mark on the visage of that persona. This layering and slow, meaty disintegration, speaks to a commonality of humankind. The images are futuristic yet past tense and conjure a modern day Dorian Gray. We are given a glimpse of the future. In it, an undeniable beauty of the decay.

SPONSOR

Del Maguey is made in remote parts of Oaxaca, Mexico, and only in limited quantities. There are just a handful of villages that produce this 100 percent agave mezcal, and each is named after the village from which it comes. Del Maguey also happens to be the only mezcal that is certified organic. Find it, sip it.

These corporative interiors have been designed by Carlos Herrera (a Mexican-Canadian designer), the owner of Habitat Innovation Designs in Toronto. He combines practical clean lines and a unique contemporary style in work that is commendably ecologically friendly.

Take an enchanting journey in the Mexican countryside with Dreaming in Reverse, a beautiful series of photomontages by American artist, Tom Chambers.

Delectable chocolate. Such is the Mayan and Nahuatl English translation of the word Ki-xocolatl. It’s also — not coincidentally, of course — the name of a stellar bean-to-bar Mexican-based chocolate collection. The result of years of partnership between a Belgian husband and wife chocolatier team, and Mexican cocoa producers hailing from Chiapas and Tabasco, Ki’xocolatl is a solid marriage of top notch Mexican ingredients and a dash of European techniques.

These organic, gluten-free sweetsare lovingly created using cocoa beans native to Mexico’s tropical jungles and deep groves, blended with local sugar cane and organic vanilla straight from Veracruz. With flavors such as dark chocolate with pink pepper; semi-bitter chocolate with chili and spice; and milk chocolate with cocoa seed ‘criollo tostado’, the collection strongly — and beautifully — reflects Mayan and Mexican traditions. So too does the packaging, with bright colors and indigenous-inspired illustrations.

If you’re lucky enough to find yourself in Merida, Mexico, stop by Ki’Xocolatl’s boutique to indulge in Mayan beverages and heaps of tantalizing cocoa products. Otherwise, keep your eyes peeled for these spicy sweets at your local coffee shop where you may just happily stumble upon a few bars as I did.

SPONSOR

Sculptor Jason de Caires Taylor is about to deploy an army of some 200 cement men and women to the bottom of Mexico’s Museum of Underwater Art in attempt to create a vast and surreal reef. Mexico’s marine take on the Terracotta Army, perhaps?

British fashion designers Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen are known the world over for their theatrics on the catwalk, but such displays of artistic fashion are unconventional for Mexico. So when designer Mauro Babún unveiled his Morgana Fall 2010 line at DFashion week with all the eerie pomp and circumstance of a McQueen show, the audience gleaned the pasarela melodrama.

Inspired by the baroque architecture of the Zacatecas cathedral, a towered and tiered church with an elaborate facade, the muted rose and beige undertones of the clothing echoed the stone of the church, as did the florid details in dresses and blousons. The female silhouettes looked straight from Westwood’s mid-90’s Anglomania. Babún meant for the collection to be structured but with the sense of decomposition like bloodied history of the church. Gulp.

Off stage, three female wailers murmured over a violin concierto, filling the catwalk with shrieks and shrills. It was surreal and hair-raising. Babún received a standing ovation. What else is one to do after such a daring display of couture? The show, as it turns out, was a dedication to the life of McQueen. Long live that sort of drama in Mexican fashion!

Stunning reds, blues, and yellows pop brightly against the stark white interior at Theurel & Thomas: Mexico’s first and only house of macarons. Located in the Northeastern city of Neuvo Leon, this authentic French patisserie is gaining accolades for its traditional, tasty macarons in flavors like raspberry, pistachio, chocolate, and coconut. But the design of this elegant boutique too is garnering heaps of attention.

The work of creative agency Anagrama, the shop is a sophisticated space with each detail obsessively thought out. One step into the bright white patisserie and it’s like you’ve gone to macaron heaven — a really sterile macaron heaven.

US architect Teddy Cruz has long focused on what architecture can learn from informal settlements. His latest project aims to build residential areas in various parts of the US that mimic the Shantytowns of Tijuana, Mexico. He’s already pitched proposals for a site in the Hudson Valley, New York, and has now shifted focus to San Ysidro, a small community just north of the US-Mexico border. Homes will be packed together, and any leftover space to be taken up by taco stands, market stalls and meeting places.

SPONSOR

Sugar by name, Sugar by … well, so it goes. And so she goes, the Australian artist nomadically, restlessly traveling the globe in search of inspiration, persperation and a different menu each night of the week. Such is the life. We interviewed Sugar recently: You’re in Mexico? I never quite know where you’ll be next. What brings you there? ‘I know! Since we have started communicating in 2006, I have lived in Melbourne, Zurich, Barcelona, London, Buenos Aires and now in Mexico. It is crazy but I love it’.
Why Mexico?
‘Well, I think I realized, travelling so much, that it is my spirit home. It is the most beautiful place on earth to me. Don’t get me wrong. I will never stop travelling. There is just too much to see. Maybe even outer-space. Who knows. But my heart is here I know that much. People can be inextricably drawn to certain places and I think it is really important to listen to that. To listen to that thing within you that comes alive.

Now this place could be the puddles you played in at the end of your street, your favourite roller-rink or the town of “Truth or Consequences”. (This really is a town in New Mexico, I have been there) Ha. My point is that you need to follow that thing that takes you there. Mexico. Hell. It is gorgeous.

There is colour everywhere and music and ribbons and fire-crackers and the kinds of people’s faces that make you cry because you can see the wind and the desert and the earth in them. I love the hand-painted sign-age, the colonial architecture, the retablos, the day of the dead, the food, the language, the textiles and patterns, the landscape, the light on the cobble-stones, the every-day-ness. I love how shitty the drivers are and that some cars are held together by plastic bands. I want to melt into every atom of it all.

Yesterday I was swimming in a lagoon surrounded by hummingbirds and I had to cry-swim because it was so beautiful.

I suppose on a practical level also, I just signed with Anna Goodson Management and something made me want to be closer to North America.

I think Mexico is a good centre for me to be able to travel to and from yet keep my heart warm.

How fluent is your creative process? Is it bursts of energy and inspiration or are you a walking, talking well of ideas?
‘I think I am pretty manic. I take a lot of time looking, observing, retreating, hiding and scheming. Being very reclusive, actually. Then someone or something clicks that switch, I am “on” and there is no turning “off”. Some of my closest friends find this pretty hilarious. One once said, “You are the most extroverted introvert I have ever known”. I think that is very true.

To be fair, though, I work every day and consistently create without really needing a break. I feel most alive when I am making things or writing or burdening my friends with my alien soliloquies. So I guess I am fluent with spikes and valleys, if that makes sense’.

How personal is your art/design work: do you inject a little piece of Sugar into every creation or is a job, a job, a job …?
‘Everything I do is personal and full of love or I would not do it. I chose very carefully, after years of horrible menial work, to find a way of living where I would always be present at the centre of what I was doing in a meaningful way. It is so much more fun to care about what you do.

I made the Lint Museum intimate because I wanted to celebrate the intimate. I did not want to be hired by anyone who was not interested in that or the ephemeral or the eclectic. I wanted to work with people who are as excited as I am about the little things in life.

I also think the Lint Museum is a pretty honest way of showing people what they are going to get if we work together. It is much more than a portfolio.

Are your costumes a fun way to lose yourself in fantasy or an even more fun way of losing yourself in reality?
‘I don’t think it is either really. I think costumes are a way to express yourself or make fun of yourself but I don’t think you get lost. In fact, I think you reveal more about who you are through costumes.

Take halloween, for example, aren’t you always intrigued by what people choose for themselves?

There is a big difference between a girl who dresses up as a chicken or a gnome and a girl who choses to be a nun or a witch or a werewolf or a stripper.

(I love werewolves by the way)

Anyhow. I think that we are all dressed in costumes all the time anyway. Conservative business man, emo, priest, cowboy, sex-kitten, hippy, high-roller or average joe.

There is really no time when we are not in costume. Sometimes they are just a little more elaborate. Like the one I dressed in for you today. (see illustration)

Thank you Zolton. You are a star. I am a huge fan of lost at e minor and have been amazed by how prolific you are and how the site has grown.

Champagne! For all my friends!’

Knuckleheads is a pretty fun little side scrolling game where you’re a pair of Mexican-wrestler-looking things attached to each other by a chain. You swing each other around to move and hit floaty capsule things for points, and you can change the length of the chain to get over various obstacles, but watch out for the bats.

Mexican architect Michel Rojkind was asked to design new spaces for the Nestle chocolate factory outside Paseo Tollocan. The resulting Zaha Hadid-ish building was conceptualized and built in just two and a half months and is constructed entirely on cement pillars that raise it off the ground. While it doesn’t exactly scream ‘chocolate’, the new structure has become a tourist draw, housing a visitor’s center, a gift shop, and a theater.