The Relic of Time, a work from Nel’s Embrace Melancholy Collection is dominated by a monumental black ceramic disk. At undisclosed intervals, a small amount of black dust slowlytravels through the air in front of it – a consequence of the interaction between the solid, ceramic material and the delicate burnt, wooden plug. A small, copper plate collects these particles – as relics of what used to be, of time and time gone by. The collected dust reminds us of our own vulnerability, vanity and contemporality. And by doing so, it reminds us of life.

As such, the work materializes time in its most confronting presence: as the incessant movement of things appearing and disappearing, existing and ceasing to exist. But it also providesmoments as autonomous entities, detached from goals or concerns, moments that could be habitable spaces by themselves, measuring nor directing.

www.nelverbeke.com