Claudia Pagès

Claudia Pagès’s artistic practice spins a linguistic web of micro-narratives, queer poetry and rhythmic speech as she explores the possibilities of staging the voice through music and the presence of bodies. She is particularly interested in systems of distribution, circulation and consumption, whether by considering the commodities sold in Barcelona’s Eixample district in Rates i cuques (2020) or by looking at the second-hand trade at Els Encants, the city’s flea market, in Gleaners–Extracción (2018–2019). She often works by recording thoughts or noting snippets of conversation overheard on the street with her phone, shuffling back-and-forth between language and translation to arrive at a form of libretto where graphics and typography also play an important role. These harvested compositions transform into scenic displays where objects accompany chanted voices and movements by both Pagès herself and her collaborators. Arrela’t, nena, arrela’t (2019), for example, was a meandering spoken and textual navigation of Barcelona neighbourhoods being transformed through the distorting economics of capitalist logistics.