PEACE & SERENITY

For the noise that does not switch off.

No pieces in this axis yet

This shelf is not open yet. We would rather show you nothing than show you something that does not belong here.

  • Obsidian formed when lava cooled too fast to crystallise, so it has no grain and no two pieces break alike.
  • Matte silver a surface that absorbs light rather than returning it, and that darkens where it contacts skin.
  • Woven cord the lightest thing here, and the one that takes on the temperature of the room fastest.

Tell me when this shelf opens

What quiet is made of

Some materials take the room down a level. Obsidian comes out of a lava flow that cooled before crystals could form, so its surface is smooth and slightly waxy rather than sparkling. Matte silver returns no clear image of anything. Woven cord weighs almost nothing and takes on the temperature of whatever is near it. None of these announce themselves. That is the point of them.

Where it comes from

Obsidian is not rare, and it is not precious. It is what happens when molten rock reaches the surface and then loses heat quickly — at the edge of a flow, in a thin flow, or where lava meets water or ice. The same slow cooling underground produces ordinary crystalline rock. Only the fast cooling produces glass.

How it has been carried

Polished into mirrors in Mesoamerica, ground for use around the eye in Egypt, knapped into blades in North America. On the plateau it sits closer to the body than to the eye: against the skin, in a pocket, in a pouch. Not shown. Kept.