The river is a loom, the thread is a mountain

(2022 – ongoing)

In the late 19th century, textile colonies emerged along the Llobregat River in Catalonia. These self-contained communities comprised factories, housing, and communal amenities.

These microcosms operated under a paternalistic system that exchanged low-cost welfare for exploited labor and restricted freedoms. The perceived benefits of this dynamic fostered a climate of obedience and compliance among workers and their families.

The textile industry’s decline in the 1970s precipitated a crisis for the colonies. Factories fell silent, and supporting infrastructure collapsed. These once thriving communities transformed into spectral remnants of their industrial past. Nowadays, while some original inhabitants persist, a new demographic of migrants and outsiders have found refuge in these interstitial spaces.

“The river is a loom, the thread is a mountain” registers the natural and constructed landscape, developing a symbolic archeology that reveals the embedded traces of power, control, hierarchy and class.

By examining the residues of industrialization and the enduring presence of nature, the work explores how the colonies' identity is shaped by the collision of past and present, fact and fiction.

Furthermore, the anachronistic nature of the landscape motivates a study on the interplay between historical and mythological narratives that define the collective memory of these spaces.