Interview: Claudia Pagès Rabal, Frieze

Kyle Dancewicz has interviewed Claudia Pagès Rabal for Frieze. Below is an excerpt:

“Claudia Pagès Rabal: As in a slightly later work, Aljubs i Grups [Cisterns and Groups, 2024], made for Manifesta 15 and co-produced with Index, Stockholm, I set out to ‘map’ the watermarks, but instead uncovered a different kind of signifier: inscriptions and graffiti in the cisterns. Embedded in the walls and etched into the surface, these marks spoke of a past shaped by violent settler histories within what is now Spain.

Kyle Dancewicz: What was it like exploring these medieval cisterns?

Claudia Pagès Rabal: When I entered the cistern in Xàtiva to make Typo-Topo-Time Aljibe, I had no idea what I would find. I managed to get inside and, once I was underground, I realized its true depth. This was a place that had once supplied water to an Islamic palace, which was later destroyed to build a convent; now, it’s in the grounds of a luxury hotel. For Aljubs i Grups, I wanted to return to that space but bring with me performers, other collaborators and new texts. I also wanted to work with a number of different locations nearby because there isn’t just one water cistern: there are many. One, which has dried out now, is a place where teenagers go to hang out, smoke joints and do their own graffiti. I wanted to create a parallel between these two spaces.”

“Kyle Dancewicz: What did you make of the language you encountered in the cisterns?

Claudia Pagès Rabal: The graffiti in the water cistern spans several centuries, from the 16th to the 19th. By the end, it’s quite absurd: just drawings of penises with names written inside them. But there are also two legal contracts recording the sale of the property carved into the under-water walls. I found it fascinating that there’s legality embedded within the absurdity of the penises.

Kyle Dancewicz: That ties into something I’ve heard you refer to previously as ‘the two streams’, which is to say visible facts and submerged narratives.

Claudia Pagès Rabal: Yes. One stream is the official timeline: dates, data, historical markers. The other is myth or misinformation: stories that spread and circulate alongside or against those facts. Together, they form the logic of imperial and colonial power. The link between water and law unsettled me, as did this evidence of how settler time works in superposition, marking the walls again and again.”

Read the full interview here.