Etage Projects' design exhibition transforms with the idea of time as a mother

The inherent beauty of materials becomes apparent with the passage of time. Leather softens, concrete gathers a patina and marks of weathering, wood becomes supple and procures a soft lustre. Time erodes, but it also creates and nurtures. This 'quiet violence' forms the central theme around which Copenhagen-based gallery Etage Projects has organised its ongoing group exhibition, Time is a Mother. The title is a reference to Vietnamese American poet Ocean Vuong's 2022 book of the same name, and the notions of fragility, vulnerability and resilience that the design exhibition hopes to showcase through furniture designs and artworks—themes which are central to Vuong's poems. "Words, the prophets/tell us, destroy/nothing they can't/rebuild," Vuong writes.

On view from February 28 – April 28, 2025, the showcase features works by French artist and designer Chloe Royer, textile artist and weaver Marie Holst, multi-disciplinary designer Minjae Kim, Milan and Rotterdam-based studio Formafantasma, Danish artist FOS and Oslo-based jewellery designer Zuzana Spustova. The contemporary designers and artists in the show reflect on the idea of the passage of time and how it makes the tensions between nurture and violence, memory and transformation apparent through different tactile mediums of textile, leather, metal, wood, ceramic and bronze. Some even make use of elements such as claws and bone. Natural motifs are abundant in the displayed works.

For instance, the patterns of Holst's tapestries metaphorically mark time, using the waxing and waning of the moon as central motifs. Further, the textile artwork changes colours when the light falling on it changes. In Royer's sculptures made of wood, metal and ceramic, she reinterprets how marine animals are represented, using oblong shapes with hooks and claws attached, bringing to mind sea anemones. In FOS' works in the exhibition space—a side table, a bench and a sculpture—it is the patina that transforms the sculptural designs. Where the table and bench are crafted from glazed concrete, the sculpture is moulded in bronze.

In his chair designs, Kim uses wood as a primary material. Of the chairs on display—imperfect and off-kilter in form but still methodically crafted—the Pain chair shows traces of wear and tear, paint chipping off in places on the wood. The Wrong chair, on the other hand, is almost right. The show also includes an incense holder and a bottle opener by Kim, in resin, reflecting the idea of accumulation and hardening with time. Also on view in the gallery space are works from two series by Formafantasma, both vessels crafted with different materials such as fibre and porcelain.

In the Botanica series, the designers experiment with plastics to suggest sustainable alternatives to the material, and in the Acquedotto series on display, they play with objects considered 'mundane' in imperial Rome. Each highlights the functional perfection of the utilitarian objects. Finally, Time is a Mother showcases a video artwork and digital print by Spustova titled Coming Out (2024, 2025). Building on the theme of the passing of time, the video is a loop depicting a ripple on the surface of water, something transforming the smooth surface into a rhythm. As the show hopes to make clear, materials remember; through the slow progression of time, they transform. But ultimately, transformation too is impermanent. Everything succumbs to time.

'Time is a Mother' is on view from February 28 – April 28, 2025, at Etage Projects, Copenhagen, Denmark.