Marie Madlen Weber

1983, Stuttgart (Germany)

Since 2004, I have mostly been working with stones that I personally pick out of quarries or find in my immediate vicinity, perhaps in a river.

For my work FormA, I probed the edges of the stone to relieve it of some of its heaviness and present it as a light, flowing, and fragile object. I will typically approach the object by working on it bit by bit from either side of a thin section. An important consideration when choosing my stone is that its shape should be the result of movement and weathering. The ridges and grooves that these processes cause lead me bit by bit toward the creation of a fine-grained concave layer.

In Valle Lavizzara, I would like to work with riverbed boulders, among other things. The outer surface of a rock, marked by the path that it has travelled, is both worn down and encrusted. So on one side, the outer crust that originated in Ticino is preserved like a testament to its homeland, while on another side it reveals, through negative impressions, the signs of the processing it has been through.

Rather than continue its journey of being pushed and pressed deeper into the riverbed by the full force of nature, the stone has been lifted out of its cycle to become a “picture” that bears witness to its journey. My research is increasingly focused on the formation of a highly fragile layer so thin as to create the impression of skin made of stone.

Additionally, I will explore the inner structures of the stone that determine its characteristic appearance.

Residency report

Die Zeit im Centro Internazionale di Scultura hat mein kreatives Schaffen enorm vorangebracht. Die Lage in den Bergen nahe am Steinbruch und die erstklassige Ausstattung boten ideale Bedingungen für konzentriertes und inspiriertes Arbeiten über drei Monate.  Durch die Unterstützung und die Werkstätten konnte ich meiner Arbeit mit Stein neue Impulse verleihen, indem ich fragile Steinelemente mit einer Stahlinstallation kombinierte.