Memorie della Polvere

Memorie della Polvere – Maria Ginzburg

Screen-printed accordion book by La Luce Rossa.

This project is dedicated to the Apuan Alps and to all those landscapes at risk of disappearing for futile reasons tied to private profit. The intent is to highlight the issues caused by a system that compromises the complex natural balance of these mountains, victims of mass production. The exhibition also emphasizes the community’s passive acceptance of permanent damage to this collective heritage, which took millennia to form and cannot be restored in the future. The guiding thread of the work is the latent memory of calcium carbonate—the material that forms marble—presented here as a powder. Its origin lies in a vital cycle and a millennia-long history of transformation and continuous structural change that led to the creation of mountain ranges. Today, this material, obtained by grinding marble blocks into powder, has recently shifted from being a production residue to an object of speculation, now used in industrial whitening processes involving products like paper or toothpaste. The accordion book presented in the exhibition aims to tell the dual story of this material and is designed to be read in both directions—right to left and vice versa. This allows the narrative to express, on one hand, the extremely slow evolutionary history of marble and the complexity that enabled its formation, and on the other, the destructive human action and the speed with which extractive processes irreparably and fatally scar the landscape. The stark contrast between the two reading directions shows the long-term consequences of harmful and selfish human behavior, offering a space for ethical reflection and self-responsibility regarding pollution, while proposing an alternative perspective. A perspective in which environmental sustainability education becomes an essential core, providing coordinates to guide more conscious daily choices through the development of a critical and participatory awareness. Cultural investment enables real emancipation from profit-driven and exploitative logic, where harmful consumerist dynamics generate waste and a lifestyle aggressive toward the planet. All this leads to reflections on the possibility of creating a new way of understanding both collective and private space—one that seeks real well-being, expressed through respectful and harmonious coexistence between humans and their environment, where well-being is not merely hedonistic but a tangible improvement in quality of life. The meaning of our existence on this planet lies in the indispensability of empathy and cooperation. From a global perspective, it becomes clear that the ethical sense of our daily lives can only be acquired by recognizing ourselves in what is different—whether it be the natural world of plants and animals or humanity itself. In conclusion, the path laid out in the pages of “Memories of Dust” seeks to affirm the unbreakable bond that links humankind to its environment, starting from the analysis of life-creating processes and underlining how the loss of the fundamental sense of inhabiting the Earth is the primary cause of the planet’s inner suffering.

DUST

Seabeds. In the shadows, life. Blind tentacles groping, corals, long fingers without hands. Cold eyes of cold limbs, smooth bodies grazing and tangling in the water. Sea creatures and then… breath. Paws, limbs, legs, supports, tendons, knees. Wings. Lives of light, of green, of thirst. Beaks, scales, feathers, fur, teeth, ears… Stripped skin. Everything is created, everything is destroyed. A metallic noise slashes through vision. Man of thirst, of hunger and money You hear creaks, the frantic rummaging of mechanical arms, the panting gnawing of iron jaws. Warm wood, trees, nature and bare rock clash clash with the violent human touch afflicted by the desperate urge to feed the craving. Bites. Bites into stone that quickly crumbles. Roads, wheels, steel, excavations. Deep holes, cavities in the mountains. Construction, building, engines. Smoke… dust… rhythm… production. There are clothes hanging in the air Air of exploitation. Air of torment. Wooden crosses planted in the soil. After obsession, torment, delirium, greed… rest. Darkness carved into the earth. J.T. They say today that if you listen to a seashell you can hear its song. Put your ear to it and hear what we’re losing.

G.M. DISGREGARE