July 2025
Notes on Aiguader
Our proposal for an intervention at Palau Robert presented as part of the AJAC programme explored the idea of relocating domestic tasks to the public realm. By doing so, it invites reflection on the daily comfort of having clean running water at home—a privilege that is neither universal nor guaranteed.
The installation was inspired by the historical figure of the aiguader—a person who once carried and sold water in cities across Catalonia and Spain. Before municipal systems, water was collected from springs or wells and transported in clay vessels, either by professionals or by members of each household.
Recreating this process in a participatory way, the installation invites visitors to fetch water, fill a càntir, carry it to the artefact, perform a domestic task, observe the waste produced, and filter the remaining water for reuse. The act makes visible the effort once required to access water—and challenges the ease with which we waste it today.
The design references large public basins, kitchen sinks, and baptismal fonts: architectures where water once played a central role in daily and collective life. The labour of water collection has been widely documented, from the photographs of Artur Pastor and Kurt Hielscher, to paintings such as El Aguador de Sevilla (1620) by Diego Velázquez, La Aguadora (1808–1812) by Francisco de Goya, Thirst (1886) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and the poem El retorn (1934) by Maria Antònia Salvà.