‘The work is about how history lingers in the present, how violence persists and why people identify with it.

Interview: Claudia Pagès Rabal talks to Kyle Dancewicz about her work tracing the surface of history across video, performance and sculpture

- Kyle Dancewicz

KYLE DANCEWICZ We first met in 2021 when your exhibition ‘disdes- duress. tris-tras, giro, fallo’ was on view at àngels barcelona. The show featured a body of work exploring the effects of globalization through the circulation of goods.

CLAUDIA PAGÈS RABAL That exhibition included my film Puerto & Court: Gerundio (2021), which played on my first 360-degree screen suspended from the ceiling. Made when I was still living in Amsterdam, and filmed between The Netherlands’ Maritime Justice Court and Rotterdam Harbour, it shows me dancing by the docks as a police ship passes shooting water in the air. The film also includes poems that seek to unpack why, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I became obsessed with visiting the harbour: I was investigating the violent linguistics of legalese and how particular forms of language, such as the gerund, are used within the justice system. The work was a playful way of weaving both these elements together.

When I moved back to Barcelona, I recorded Gerundi circular (2021), shooting it at the customs agency, the World Trade Center and the breakwater that triangulates its port. This experience further piqued my interest in tracing the language of violence, which in turn led me to investigate the histories of the Silk Road and Mediterranean trade routes.

KD The Silk Road seems to serve as a framework for many of your exhibitions.