Artwork

The following text is a script for a lecture-performance that views resistance as a shared condition of human bodies and stone. Moving between material processes—quarrying marble and baking bread—it approaches resistance as emerging through labor, pressure, exhaustion, and excess.

The narrative unfolds along two intertwined and mutually permeating temporalities. One follows the histories and material landscape of Carrara, Italy, shaped by marble extraction and anarchist struggle. The other traces moments from contemporary Moscow, Russia, where monuments, their absence, and gestures mark the present. Auto-fictional Moscow fragments are woven into Carrara’s trajectory, enabling past and present to seep into one another.

Materials

Table × 1
Chair × 1
Glass bowl × 3
Colored dough (white, black) × 2
Flour ~1/2 kilo
Photos × 9
Printed text × 1
Top-down camera × 1

Performer sits at the table; bowls, dough, photographs, and other materials are set. The table is filmed from above and streamed live to a screen behind the performer

The children of Fiat workers would come to the colony in Massa in Italy during the holidays. We can imagine how in the morning they would wake up and go down to the dining room for breakfast, then come back for lunch. In the evening, after dinner, they went back to bed and headed up the spiral staircase of the Fiat tower.

Performer shows Fig.1

Not really far from the colony, white serpentine roads would take them up into the mountains, to the Carrara quarries where the famous marble is extracted.

Performer shows Fig.2

Pause

But Carrara is not only known for its marble. It’s also marked by the influence of anarchism, and by its pig fat, known as lardo. Like marble, lardo is white, streaked with pink veins. The connection between them runs deeper: both are shaped by the labor of quarrying.

Performer shows Fig. 3

In a sense, all three of these elements converge in the figure of the quarryman.

Performer shows Fig. 4

Sculptures, monuments, and plaques are scattered all over the city of Carrara. It is impossible to avoid them as one passes through. The city is itself an accumulation of stones, piled on top of one another.

And so, Carrara provides a workforce for extraction, while the mountain supplies a body of stone that later becomes monuments.

When looking at this abundance of marble through a critical lens, it may at first seem that the continued presence of monuments should be put into question.

But unlike colonial monuments erected by states and established powers, anarchist monuments—built at the initiative of grassroots activists—challenge those powers. These monuments, in that sense, embody the struggle.

Pause

In a way, the stone heritage in question is not just a repository of the past; rather, it continues to shape knowledge production. The monuments recall the struggles endured by the people of Carrara, both in their labor with marble and in their resistance to authority.

At the same time, they serve as living memorials, allowing acts of defiance to be re-enacted. In their subversive capacity, these monuments persist as catalysts for resistance.

Performer shows Fig. 5

The escalator monotonously carries me down to the Moscow underground.

I notice a woman standing in front of me. She has a bouquet of flowers in her hands but she doesn’t seem excited.

When we reach the station, she starts to look around, as if someone were following her. But it’s late in the evening and the station is almost empty. Then she takes courage and walks towards one of the mosaics at Kyivskaya metro station. She lays the flowers on the stone at the base of the panel, looks around once again, and quickly leaves.

I stand off to the side for a bit—nothing happens. Then my train arrives and I leave.

Pause

Performer spreads some flour on the tabletop and picks pieces of dough of different colors, starts mixing them together, stretching the dough, adding new pieces and mixing again. This action continues throughout the performance

Monuments are only small elements within the larger spatial arrangements. Even when removed, they leave a trace—an absence that inhabits the space, and reshapes how memory and place are understood.

Demolition is not an act of justice as such. Instead, it appears to function as a tool for establishing new power structures. And although this approach can initially be perceived as counter-hegemonic, it does not lead to any form of emancipation on its own.

Performer shows Fig. 6

I hear the hum of cars from afar. When the alley ends, I enter Lubyanka Square and find myself in the middle of heavy traffic—countless cars circling the roundabout. They circle around a void. Behind me is the former KGB headquarters, but the other part that once defined the square—the statue of the organisation’s founder—is missing. It was demolished as the Soviet Union collapsed, and nothing has taken its place.

I walk around the square to find another monument—the Solovetsky Stone, brought here from one of the GULAG camps. Although hidden among bushes, it’s still there, marking the other side of history.

Pause

In Carrara, the nature of marble helps shape an identity formed through ongoing work and struggle with the stone, from which aspirations for emancipation emerge.

Whatever the conditions that lead to and shape protest, resistance always needs some kind of small push, a small and seemingly insignificant event that brings all the accumulated disagreements into action. For Carrara, such an event was the rise in bread prices. This event became the catalyst for the uprising in 1894.

Some sources suggest anarchists fleeing Belgium and Switzerland initiated the revolt. They saw the quarrymen—an exploited group—as allies.

The uprising began on January 13 in Lunigiana and soon spread. It started as a demonstration in support of rebels in Sicily, but things turned violent when police moved in to break up the crowd, injuring several people. By the end of the event, one officer was wounded, another officer and one protester were killed. Violence escalated as quarry workers attacked the police headquarters and seized weapons. Larger groups set fire to the tax office, while militants blocked Carrara’s main road with giant slabs of marble to stop the army from entering.

Groups of workers tried to march into Carrara but were stopped by the military. By the next morning, the city was surrounded by soldiers.

A state of siege was declared the same day, and soon the uprising was over.

Pause

Many quarry workers were among those facing arrest. In response, they called a general strike. They came down from the mountains and gathered near the military barracks, where hundreds of people were already being held. As the crowd got closer, troops assembled and opened fire. Eleven were killed, many others wounded. Some armed groups fled into the mountains, with soldiers close behind.

Those who took part in the uprising climbed higher into the mountains, trying to stay out of reach. The military troops closed in, chasing them upwards and calling for surrender.

Performer shows Fig. 7

Coming out of the underpass, I step into Pushkin Square—just before it is blocked by police.

Slipping into the crowd of protesters, I spot a group of friends. As time passes and the crowd thickens, we gather around the poet’s monument at the square center. The most active climb onto the sculpture’s base, trying to reach the figure above. I look at the monument—sombre and silent—it looks past me.

We remain there for a while, until the police begin grabbing everyone they can reach.

Not everyone was caught—many stayed on the run for a while, hiding in the forests of the Apuan Alps.

Pause

Despite the repression that followed, anarchism in Carrara became further entrenched.

Its legacy remains in the city’s landscape through monuments and memorials. These engravings carry a history that continues to shape Carrara.

Performer shows Fig. 8

Late February, I sit at home in Moscow, surrounded by papers and clothes waiting to be packed.

On my desktop—posters, and I can’t decide what to do with them. After a while, I make up my mind and print them in black and white. Then cover my head and face—though I know it’s useless protection, and slip out into the street.

I wander around for some time, trying to find a place where street cameras wouldn’t reach me. Finally, I see huge white walls of an archway leading into a courtyard. I spread glue on the stone and press on two words—“*** *****.”

The next day, the walls are white again.

Pause

What does it take to quarry marble? What does it take to resist?

Could these processes be shaped by similar conditions?

We can speak of excess and despair as two incompatible concepts. Excess implies abundance, while despair signals lack. But strangely, both constitute resistance—just as they are a part of what drives stone quarrying.

Marble quarrying requires strength, but also desperation: people often take on this dangerous work to meet basic needs. In that sense, labor itself involves both excess and scarcity.

Pause

Is resistance not driven by the same force? It often emerges when options are limited.

But it cannot arise from absence alone—something must be in excess for it to be possible. Desire, will, and effort must accumulate alongside despair.

The marble of Carrara shares these qualities with the miners. For centuries, marble has been a luxury, embodying excess, yet it continues to resist extraction.

The city’s monuments reflect this tension: the same stone that symbolises excess also marks the people who worked on it. And so we come full circle—back to the stone.

Pause

Monuments are often built to serve as memorials—places where people can come together to remember, mourn, and pay tribute.

For instance, the monument to Alberto Meschi in Piazza Gramsci in Carrara. Each year, it becomes a gathering point for anarchists during the May Day demonstrations. This gathering draws people from the local community and beyond, and they walk towards the monument singing anarchist songs.

One “marble” bread is ready and placed in the center of the table, images are left scattered around it

Performer shows Fig. 9

As I join the crowd surrounding the church, the service is already over. At first, there’s a bit of confusion. Gradually, the crowd figures out which way to go and begins to stretch out across several kilometers—all the way to Borisovskoye Cemetery.

As we walk, the gloomy colonnade of policemen is following us. Their silence pierces shouts and honks coming from both sides of the street.

Eventually, the procession stalls—the police start slicing the crowd into smaller groups with iron fences.

Boring and cold.

Pause

Pop-up memorials appear in the snow. People leave flowers at the base of trees, light candles. A woman places two carnations on a fence. A man standing nearby somehow manages to access the internet and starts streaming the news. A group of people forms around him. Now and then, someone from the group shouts: “They’re still letting people through!” The message travels through the crowd.

Finally, I see the gates of the cemetery ahead and manage to pass through. Instead of a grave, I see a mountain of flowers. A stern man keeps urging everyone: “Put down the flowers and move, don’t hold up the queue.”

Pause

Thank you for your attention. Now the dough should be given some time to rise.

This project was developed as part of the seminar Performing Landscapes of Leisure and Extraction: Quarries and Other Colonies, led by Céline Condorelli and Hanne König. The performance was originally shown at the POST-COLONIA Festival of Architecture and Imaginaries in Transition in Massa, Italy.