The image of La Mercè 2025 goes far beyond the paper. This year, the poster for Barcelona’s main festival, just presented, has come to life as a real stage, a tableau of flesh and blood (or wood and nails) that was built to human size and on which the designer, Lluís Danés, was based to design the poster for the main festival and that, attention, will become a reality during the festivities and can be visited.
After the controversial poster of 2024, we tell you everything you need to know about the poster of La Mercè 2025 in Barcelona.
What is the poster for La Mercè 2025 about?
Conceived by the set designer and director Lluís Danés, the poster is presented as a human-sized baroque altarpiece, a “fairground carriage” on wheels that mixes religious iconography, circus imagery and the theatricality of La Mercè.
The poster is not a drawing or a design, but a life-size scenography that was built with the Castells family and has been portrayed by photographer David Ruano.
In the presentation Danés wanted, in fact, to highlight the work of the artisans of wood and iron that have built the scenography in an era dominated by AI.
What can be seen in the poster?
The composition is organized on three levels. At the base, the bigheaded mace-bearers announce the barcelonian nature of the set and reinforce the idea of movement. In the center of the cart, several figures -a dancer, a musician-man orchestra and an empty niche- invite to a scenic and open reading.
And at the top, the large central female figure (the Mercè? the party?) is flanked by a cook and another theatrical figure. Above, as a climax and a tightrope walker, a woman walks on the poster, closing the montage with a nod to the world of the circus and the possibility of reading this image as something secular, ambiguous, free.
The poster -and its entire aesthetic universe- has been graphically developed by the P.A.R. studio and features an original soundtrack composed and performed by Gemma Humet, together with the Municipal Band of Barcelona, which this year celebrates the prologue of its 140th anniversary. The result is a campaign that fuses image and sound to convey the essence of the city’s most important festival.
Who is Lluís Danés?
Lluís Danés is a multidisciplinary creator trained in sculpture at the Escola d’Arts i Oficis de Barcelona and with a career marked by visual and scenic experimentation. Partly self-taught, he has worked as a set designer, artistic director, director and audiovisual producer, developing his own style that has left its mark on theater, film, television and cultural events. He is a collaborator of Elisava’s Art Direction postgraduate course and has created scenographies for emblematic concerts such as Lluís Llach’s concert at the Palau Sant Jordi, the Electric Burma or the Concert per la Llibertat. He has also worked with internationally renowned artists such as Peter Gabriel, The Edge or Michael Stipe.
As a director, his film La vampira de Barcelona, winner of five Gaudí Awards, including Best Film, stands out. As a stage director, he has directed shows such as La torre dels somnis, Wasteland and Geronimo Stilton, the musical. He has directed documentaries, television ceremonies such as the Gaudí Awards and institutional events such as the 10 September ceremony of the Diada. He has also designed exhibitions, renewed the image of Canal33 and collaborated with festivals such as Cruïlla or the Piromusical de la Mercè. His work combines the visual, the symbolic and the emotional, with a constant commitment to culture and artistic expression.
The poster will come true: where and when you can visit the scenography of La Mercè
This year, in addition, Barcelona will be able to give an informed opinion: the altarpiece will be mounted entirely in Sant Jaume and can be visited during the days of La Mercè, from September 23 to 28.
In this way, the Mercè poster will become a sort of Christmas “nativity scene” that the people of Barcelona will be able to visit in the city’s central square.