Part of the group exhibition “Journeys” at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 1983
Collaboration with Georgianna Kettler
Timeroom is an immersive installation exploring layered representations of time—historical, geographic, and political. The environment was co-created with painter Georgianna Kettler, whose surreal wall murals provided a dreamlike stage for Remo Campopiano’s gothic sculptural elements.
At its heart, the installation juxtaposes symbolic and literal markers of time: an antique clock, suspended impossibly among painted clouds, ticks away in real time, while a towering bookcase charts the upheavals and milestones of the 20th century. Together, they anchor the viewer in a dynamic tension between constancy and disruption.
A glass tabletop, supported by antique furniture, forms the centerpiece. Beneath its surface, sand is shaped into the contours of the Mediterranean Sea basin. Inhabiting this microcosmic landscape are 500 live red ants—an active colony whose instinctive collaboration contrasts sharply with the turbulence chronicled in the adjacent bookshelf.
While the bookcase reveals time as a force of conflict and transformation, the ant colony presents a quieter metaphor: one of cooperation, adaptability, and collective purpose. In Timeroom, these dual visions of time invite the viewer into a suspended moment—where scale is fluid, and time is both personal and planetary.