A STUDY 003 / Piece 02

There is a particular disappointment in taking a beautiful stone home from the beach. In the water it is saturated with colour, luminous and alive; by the time it dries, something has disappeared. Sarah Emilie Müllertz has collected such stones for years. What interests her is partly what remains, but also what does not: the memory of a colour and patterns only the person who once picked up the stone has seen.

When asked to make a treasure, she returned to one of them.

Its body became a small box, first drawn by hand, then modelled, printed and finally made in silver. The choice feels almost inevitable. Silver has something of water in it — cool, reflective, seemingly liquid — but unlike the stone, it begins to record traces of time after it comes home. It oxidises. It scratches. It takes on fingerprints and traces of handling.

The box opens to reveal a space for something small enough to keep to oneself. In that sense, Müllertz has made a treasure with two interiors: the physical one, which can hold an object, and another made from memory, known only to its owner.