If you were a text, I’d never stop tinkering with you. Each day, I’d move a comma or change a word just to be with you on that big expanse that is our page.

This body of work draws on a bygone folk tradition of carving books out of stone to commemorate lost loved ones or to gift as tokens of affection. This collection explores the different stages and manifestations of the book, ranging from unused and unopened to worn and loved.

Each book and folio in this collection was carved by hand. Despite its solidity, marble is remarkably soft and permeable, making it a rewarding medium for experimentation and slow crafting. The Greek roots of the word ‘marble’, which derive from ‘shining stone’, speak of its gleaming, shining quality, which one is constantly reminded of while working with the medium. Sometimes, a chisel or drill bit would strike a crystalline vein, and it would light up, briefly, like a shooting star or an idea travelling to another world. 

See Stella Viljoen’s An Apologetics of Scale for a review of the project.

Sculpting Textual Bodies (Group Exhibition). 31 July – 30 August 2024, Oude Leeskamer, Stellenbosch.

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Photographs by Matt Slater, courtesy of Oude Leeskamer.