Before entering the Crestola quarry, the journey began at the headquarters of LITIX, in La Piastra (Carrara). Here we find a preliminary stage of the experience, conceived as an absolute threshold. The works from the series La soglia del silenzio (The threshold of silence) by Luciano Massari were presented, introducing a suspended time and a dimension of waiting. The four sculptures, in Bardiglio Nuvolato marble, appeared as anthropomorphic figures, frozen in a state of unstable equilibrium. They did not serve as an illustrative function: they acted as devices to slow down the gaze, preparing the visitor for the subsequent immersion in the context of the quarry. In this preliminary stage, one of the interpretative keys of the entire project was defined: wonder as a process of perceptual construction. Suspension became a necessary condition for reading the subsequent space, in which the quarry appeared as an active cultural device and no longer simply as a place of extraction.

Within the theoretical path of the installation, the concept of wonder was traced back to the philosophical tradition of the Aristotelian thaumazein, understood as the origin of thought and knowledge. Wonder has thus been represented as an opening of the gaze, a preliminary condition for the interpretation of reality.

In this sense, the Crestola quarry itself has become a space in which matter has been questioned in its temporal and symbolic dimension. Marble was interpreted as an original and stratified element at the same time. Its etymology (linked to the Greek mármaros) recalled the idea of majesty and luminosity, underlining an intrinsic quality of the material that manifested itself in the relationship with light. The quarry thus became a space in which matter became visible as a process and no longer just a place of extraction. The work of Michelangelo Pistoletto, La Grande Mela (The Big Apple), was inserted within this system, introducing an element of formal recognition within the mineral landscape. The work, characterized by an engraved surface recomposed through a series of clips, established a direct comparison with the quarry, activating a relationship between human gesture and geological structure. This work is part of the artist's path, which can be traced back to a reflection on the relationship between nature, artifice, and the responsibility of gaze.

Alongside this work, the intervention of Filippo Tincolini introduced a procedural dimension. The work Spiritus Montis was born from the use of a robotic system developed by the Carrara-based company LITIX spa, through the ROBOTOR ONE-SPECIAL model, which intervened directly on the internal wall of the quarry. This was a case where the sculpture was generated in direct relation to the stone surface. The result was a female figure curled up in a fetal position, integrated into the wall itself.

The photographic work of Laura Veschi, Anatomia della meraviglia (Anatomy of Wonder), also fits into this context, interpreting marble as an autonomous entity. Her research developed between quarries, laboratories and workspaces, without reducing the subject to a document. Matter was observed in its transformation, in a condition of continuous re-definition between natural and artificial. The lighting system designed by Martinelli Luce helped define the overall perception of the space. Artificial light has in fact built a direct relationship with the surfaces and stratifications of the quarry.

The itinerary also included the intervention of Giuseppe Veneziano with the work White Slave, who reinterpreted a fairy-tale figure through a material transposition in marble. The image, recognizable in its iconographic origins, has been subjected to a process of semantic destabilization, in which the narrative has shifted towards an ambiguous condition between representation and alteration. This is the distinctive feature of Veneziano's poetics. In this sense, wonder arose from the discontinuity with the known: from the work's ability to undermine a consolidated image, restoring it in an ambiguous, more complex, unstable and, perhaps, more authentic form.

The overall experience was accompanied by sound and performative elements, including the piano performance of Giuseppe Califano and a light installation based on over four thousand candles, which contributed to define a rarefied perceptive condition. The set of interventions was aimed at constructing an expanded temporality: in this sense, attention shifted to the relationship between the observer and the observed matter. Wunderkammer2 was therefore configured as a complex system in which contemporary art, technology, photography, and music converged within an extractive context temporarily converted into a cultural space. In Carrara, the Crestola quarry thus became a visual device, in which marble represented a powerful, layered narrative structure.