The Fernando García Ponce Macay museum opened its doors to the public yesterday, October 4, after six and a half months of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“ We started this new challenge with a new reality and taking care of each other,” said Elba García Villarreal, director of the Macay Cultural Foundation, during the opening attended by Erika Millet Corona, secretary of culture of the State Government, and Irving Berlin Villafaña, director of culture of the City Council.
At the ceremony, which was welcomed by Rafael Pérez y Pérez, director of the venue, Elba García stressed that the experience of being in front of a painting inside the museum is not changed by anything.
The museum reopened with three artistic proposals that, due to the health situation, were interrupted: Conformaciones, a collection of contemporary Yucatecan ceramics; Construción-deconstrución y Onírico by the artist Jovian, and Unrealidades by the Colombian Darío Ortiz.
“By opening the physical doors of our museum we are opening the reflection on issues that are fundamental in a critical moment like the present. The Covid-19 pandemic becomes a shared commitment to care on the part of the public and the institutions, ”he said to later highlight that the museum is a safe space.
In her turn, the secretary of culture celebrated the opening of the place and pointed out that opening the door of such an emblematic cultural space “means hope for the future, hope that the cultural life of Yucatán can continue despite all the difficulties” .
The fact, he added, shows that work in art and culture has not stopped despite having had its doors in these months.
After the speeches were over, the authorities, including Ana Méndez Patterson, director of the Sedeculta Museums, toured the rooms, including the permanent ones, dedicated to Fernando García Ponce, Fernando Castro Pacheco and Gabriel Ramírez Aznar .
The Museum joins other venues such as the Canton Palace and the Korean Immigration Palace that have already opened to the public.
In this regard, the secretariat of culture indicated that the reopening of these venues represents a breath of fresh air and a hopeful space that indicates that the culture of Yucatan has a life and continuity.
He added that several private spaces are working on their reopening. However, he pointed out that spaces such as the Great Museum of the Mayan World still do not have the date to open “to give priority to the recovery of private spaces.”
