When we discard something, does its story truly end—or begin again?
This question lies at the heart of ‘It May Be Not, It May Be So’, a marble sculpture created during my residency at the Digital Stone Project in Italy. I have long been drawn to the intersection of architecture and sculpture—a space where form and emotion engage in constant dialogue, and materials hold memory.
This led me to embrace sculpting as a vital part of my practice. Over time, I have explored various media in this pursuit, developing a tactile relationship with clay before ultimately embracing marble. In the mountains near the Apuan Valley—the legendary source of Carrara marble—these explorations became a meditation on material, memory, and transformation.
Concept and Themes
The idea began with the fragile gesture of a crumpled piece of paper: discarded and overlooked, yet carrying a quiet poetry revealed by light in its folds. This simple act invited me to question what we reject and why.
Could the discarded hold stories be worth preserving?
Could impermanence itself be transformed into permanence?
Carrara marble, known for its endurance and beauty, carries a heritage reaching back to Roman times and has been revered by artists including Michelangelo. While paper represents fragility, Carrara marble embodies a profound cultural legacy embedded within it. Bringing these extremes together allowed me to explore how materials hold memory in form and texture, challenging the boundaries between strength and delicacy, permanence and impermanence.
Process
The making of ‘It May Be Not, It May Be So’ was deeply process-led and iterative. It moved through stages and materials, with each medium shaping the next: paper inspiring clay; the form digitised and refined; translated into robotic carving; and finally, hand-carved and finished in stone.
The work also examines how machine and hand connect—how digital tools extend rather than replace the human gesture. Technology became a translator of intent, showing how digital processes can serve rather than dictate design.
Seven-axis robotic milling introduced its own constraints. The complex form required splitting and rejoining the sculpture with a dry joint. This seam, far from hidden, was embraced as an essential part, honouring the act of creation and the memory of the process. The tactile dimension remained central. Hand-carving demanded both rigour and intimacy; stone preserves every action with an honesty that humbles. A slip of the grinder left a tiny hole—a scar etched permanently into the stone. Each stage was less about control than about accepting traces.
Reflections
‘It May Be Not, It May Be So’ captures a moment suspended between presence and absence. It is both an object and a journey, where fragility, memory, and endurance coexist. The work invites reflection on what is vulnerable and what is resilient, recognising that meaning is fluid—shifting with perception, time, and context. For some, it signals vulnerability; for others, resilience. Its ambiguity opens space for multiple interpretations.
The questions posed by the sculpture are equally relevant in architecture. Architecture, too, is lived through perception—through how people feel in spaces and how they connect within them.
Belonging grows not only from form but from the layers of memory a place holds. That memory resides in materials as well.
What do we keep, and what do we discard?
In nature, nothing is ever truly discarded—everything transforms, returns, continues. What stories are lost when we discard too quickly? If we begin to see value in what remains, discarded materials and places can return with a new purpose. Circular design and adaptive reuse are not only practical and responsible ways of building but also ways of keeping memory alive, building in alignment with how nature works.
Exhibited first in Barga in 2023 and later in Altopascio in 2025, this work is rooted in the artistic and cultural landscape of Tuscany while engaging with contemporary debates on sustainability and material poetry. This became Piece Zero of SOTLR, an emerging practice at the intersection of architecture and sculpture, with ongoing work extending these questions across scales.
‘It May Be Not, It May Be So’ began as a fragile gesture in paper and became a marble sculpture, but its questions extend beyond the object itself. They ask how we live with materials, with spaces, and with one another. In the end, the work is less an answer than an open reminder: meaning is never absolute. It may be not, it may be so.
