Picture by @leyre.lopezdelapaz

Huddled in the first corner of the few rooms that the two had just begun to renovate and bring heating to, they talked of the offers and exhausting pressures brought by business interests which took historic building after historic building in their area.

Even then, before their tireless work to restore it, it was breathtaking: A 16th century Palazzo of cream coloured walls and ornate carved-out balconies. Wide stone-brick internal patios that you could almost see hotel developers destroying to open their restaurant’s outdoor seating.

As all the seniorial houses of old Palma were one by one hollowed out, Pedro and Mayda had fought tooth and nail to keep it in its original state, at great cost and far greater scrutiny from regulatory agencies than their neighbours.

And as we explained the concept of XTANT in that first meeting, the leadership program, and the inspiration of that year’s motif: The Mallorquin philosopher and polymath Ramon Llull, Pedro Montaner, a historian by trade, got up, walked to the library and pulled out a downright ancient pigskin copy of the man’s work.

So we were immediately sure that this was the space where XTANT should take place.

Photo of the @passaaofuturo exposition by Yuki Sugiura

We’ve been there every May since.

Three years from then and we’ve seen their work in renovating the palace, watching room after room open as though they were untouched since the 18th century.

Each year, as the ideas behind how to construct and transform the space they lend us become grander or more complex to set up, the owners have been nothing but kind to us. Helping however they could and showing an interest in the fair that we never would’ve expected.

NOMAD 2026 is now only three months away and, as preparations have been ramping up the team has been going to and from Palma. Taking measurements, sizing up how the installations will be placed.

The book ‘Invisible Cities’ by Italo Calvino has taken the imagination of XTANT recently. And, as the concepts for the space veer off into the unorthodox, we started to consider the works at Can Vivot, as something like postcards or brochures of the different worlds they belonged to.

The craft, the culture, the small signs in patterns or materials that open up to tell you all about the history of an area.

In ‘Invisible Cities’, a fictional version of Genghis Khan silently bemoans the moment that Marco Polo learned to speak to him, for the fantastical implications behind the signs and objects he once play-acted with were replaced with dull mechanical description. Slowly, the book says, the two grew bored of the abstraction of language and returned to signing and gesturing.

This year XTANT aims to do something inspired by this, not stop speaking, we’ll probably never do that. But we hope to play with people’s imagination, avoiding the strict geographical categories or other abstractions we make in our heads to understand the world, and instead giving visitors and the space of Can Vivot itself these scattered windows into the art and work of all those far away places.

Where Palma was once a crossroads in which countless philosophies, cultures, and trades met, evidenced in Can Vivot’s mix of different mediterranean architectures and Arabic stylings, it remains that same crossroads today, seen as those baroque palace walls are dressed in the works of artisans from all across our world.

Can’t wait to see you there. Book your flights!

…In theme with NOMAD 2026 our newest workshop takes a look at button stylings from the Buryat people of eastern Siberia! It’s a part of the world we are so happy to finally have representation from, and Surzhana’s work is wonderful.

Otherwise consider supporting the event through the VIP PATRON PASS. We wouldn’t be able to do this without everyone’s continued support.

If you are interested in visiting the private upstairs of Can Vivot please see their website and reserve a spot!

Tell them we sent you.