Retablo

RETABLO

CENTRAL STREET:

Secastila is a small village situated in the Aragonese pre-Pyrenees under a framework of mountains known for the cultivation of the Garnacha grape. During the dictatorship, the construction of a reservoir destroyed several villages. The water reserves were centralised and the inhabitants forcibly displaced.
Volturina was one of the few surviving villages until the construction of Torreciudad, a sanctuary of Opus Dei. They bought the village and then demolished it in its entirety, except for the church. Abandoned to its fate, the building is a victim of time and natural agents, who are ensuring that it shares its fate with the rest of the buildings in the village. Nowadays many localities, including Secastilla, suffer depopulation or even abandonment.

SIDE STREETS:

‘School and larder’ was one of the mottos of Joaquín Costa, representative of the intellectual movement known as Regenerationism, he lived in Graus (1846-1911) just a few kilometres from Secastilla.
Even then, self-sufficiency and the existence of schools were promoted in order to help lift the spirits of a depressed Spain.

SCHOOL:

‘When there are children things change!’ I often heard this phrase in the mouths of many local people, said in different ways but with an apparent common meaning.

But how do you keep children without schools, how do you keep schools without enough pupils?

DESPENSE:

‘Nowadays it is practically impossible to live off one’s own land’ A local farmer explained to me, adding that despite having the raw material, everything is in the hands of the distributors.

Mural realised with the support and collaboration of Pablo S.Herguedas in October 2021.