Royal Factory of Earthenware and Porcelain of the Count of Aranda, L’Alcora, Castellon, Valencia.
I am an intruder in this place. The factory rejected me at first; I fell ill, and it took me a long time to begin exploring. Days later, once I had overcome this physical setback, I thought it had finally left me alone. Yet later it reminded me that, at any moment, something could still fall on my head.
L’Alcora, Nov. 2023
“Materials that have entered the Factory should not be taken out unless they are manufactured. We order that once any material has entered our Factory, it cannot leave unless it is manufactured, for any reason, not even to be ground or fired elsewhere. For this purpose, we want the necessary offices to exist within the doors of our Factory, and in their absence, no recourse shall be made to others.”
(Escriva de Romaní, 1945, pp. 284–285)
Work was carried out only in the Tilesa section. Tilesa comes from “tiles.” It was the last guardian of what remained of the Royal Factory of the Count of Aranda. Little by little, it has accepted my presence in the place, and I am beginning to hear what it is trying to communicate. There are many things in the factory: broken tiles, painted and unpainted, blue, red, yellow, green; stamped pieces, raw clay, glazes and slips everywhere, broken kilns, and collapsed ceilings. Sunlight enters through holes, and the enamel pools bear names like “avocado green” and “Texas black.”
Tilesa left everything behind. History stopped there, but now it begins to mutate. Sometimes ceramics are a game with time. In them, geological processes that take millions of years are condensed into just a few hours, and moments and stories are frozen as well. Time becomes solid, and everything eventually becomes part of the landscape, like stones in a pocket. L’Alcora is built on top of L’Alcora, and Tilesa on top of the Royal Factory. The past accumulates on terraces and beneath the ground. Something made everyone leave, abandoning remnants that are not trash but gold instead. Colors and more colors in the gloom of a place that wants to speak, dissolving its history so that it may be read.
“Punishment for those who adulterate the Factory. We command that if any person, whether from within or outside the Factory, with little fear of God, conspires to adulterate it—”
