On the way to the Cava Cervaiole quarry, I stopped to explore the shores of the Versilia River. As I wandered, I came across marble debris: fragments of industrially cut slabs scattered along the riverbank. These broken pieces of processed marble were slowly being polished by running water. Slabs slowly morphing into boulders, then to pebbles – once given form dissolving back into matter.
I realized that these currents flowing to the Ligurian Sea, once played a role in transporting marble quarried in the Apuan Alps down to workshops in Pietrasanta town. The presence of varied marble types in the riverbed suggests not only local extraction, but the confluence of broader geographies – material movement inscribed in sediment and color.
I walked there for about an hour and knelt to touch the marble fragments still slightly out of place, yet already being smoothed by water and time. The act of filming became part of sensory ethnography, slowing me down and sharpening attention.
The texture, temperature, and subtle resistance of the marble registered not just as visual data, but as a tactile form of knowing. This sensory ethnography helps transcend the limits of sight and text and enables recording and transmission of textures, sounds, atmospheres, thus enabling mutual sharing of these fully dimensional experiences. I continued to film in each place visited, feeling each stone’s surface through my gaze. Recording became a way of watching, seeing and paying attention. Similarly, the process of editing these recorded experiences became a form of analysis – selecting what is meaningful and vibrant for a specific situation or place.