In this project I am attempting to embody the mountain; its inhabitants and its matter. In response to the energy and waste intensive quarrying, its environmental impact and its irreversible damage to the landscape, I walked 28km (14km twice) from the mountain village of Colonnata to the beach adjacent to the Port of Marina Di Carrara, Italy, carrying and trailing my body weight in marble dust as I walked.
In the 10 hours that it took me to walk and trail 49kg of marble dust, the trucks that passed by me on the road transported daily quota of marble waste, I worked out that the load I was carrying was approximately 0.0018926244284047371% of the loads the trucks were transporting.
This film project was made during a 10 day visit to Carrara in the summer of 2016. I filmed the two walks myself, walking back and forth to my camera on a tripod and with Go -pro cameras attached to my legs and arms. By filming from my arms, ankles and legs and not my eyes I access and offer an insight into what my body saw, of itself in the environment, making me both subject and object. The cameras showed me what I didn’t know I was seeing, offering new perspectives on the landscape.
It is currently estimated that 2.5 million tons of waste marble is generated every year in the Carrara marble quarries in the Apuan Alps, Tuscany, Italy. Presently much of this waste is transported and transformed into a fine marble dust and exported for use in beauty and cleaning products, pharmaceuticals, milk and building materials. The act of carrying my body weight in marble powder aimed to draw attention to the weight of my body, and its equivalence in matter. Leaving a trail of powder in my wake as I walk, draws attention to the physical, material and essential presence of both myself, the marble and the mountain. The gesture of wasting the marble asks questions about the value of me, the value of the marble and the value of the mountain. Drawing a continuous bright white 14km line of dust from the mountain to the beach made me feel both unnervingly powerful and present while also utterly insignificant and irrelevant.
Made in Carrara, Apuan Alps, Tuscany, Italy, 2016