Taking inspiration from Langston Hughes, this work begins with his poem Harlem (1951), which reflects on the consequences of deferred dreams. Using the poem as a starting point, Burchiellaro explores the emotional and psychological effects of delayed aspirations through a series of ceramic vessels.

Harlem

By Langston Huges

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up  like a raisin in the sun?  Or fester like a sore—  And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?  Or crust and sugar over—  like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags  like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Hughes asks what happens to a dream when it is postponed. Whether it dries up, festers, sags under its weight, or ultimately explodes. With these vessels, the artist considers how unrealized aspirations continue to exist beneath the surface of our lives: quiet but persistent, like an undercurrent shaping how we perceive ourselves and navigate the world.

The form of the vessels is deliberately simple. Each piece takes the shape of a rectangle measuring approximately 30 × 40 cm, with a narrow depth of about 5 cm. This restrained geometry creates a contained space in which these hushed desires can take form. Each vessel corresponds to one of the states evoked in Hughes’ poem; drying, crusting, festering, rotting, sagging, or exploding.

Though sculptural, the vessels remain functional. In this way they bridge the material and the emotional, allowing what is often kept hidden within us to quietly rise to the surface.

A space where what is not said can remain present — sottovoce.