Exhuma Console is a minimalist console created by Mexico City-based practice EWE Studio. The molten aluminum catches the light like liquid fire, its surface bearing the subtle irregularities that only sand casting can achieve. This is the Exhuma Console, where EWE Studio has breathed contemporary life into techniques perfected by Purépecha metalworkers over five centuries ago. The console emerges not merely as furniture, but as a meditation on cultural continuity, where ancestral knowledge flows seamlessly into modern living spaces.

The piece reveals its deeper narrative through material dialogue. Atop a monolithic volcanic stone base – the same basalt that built the stepped pyramids called yácatas across western Mexico – rests a aluminum surface born from sand molds. This pairing speaks to the Purépecha understanding of permanence and transformation: the eternal stone anchoring the fluid metal, each material honoring its own inherent properties while serving a unified vision.

“We are proud to incorporate these traditional techniques into our work and to highlight this artisanal legacy,” the designers note, yet their ambition extends beyond preservation. The console’s silhouette evokes the Tajadera, those remarkable copper implements that functioned simultaneously as weapons, currency, and sacred objects in pre-Hispanic society. This formal reference transforms utilitarian furniture into cultural artifact, suggesting how objects can carry meaning across temporal boundaries.

The casting process itself becomes ritualistic. Following methods from 1450 AD, molten metal flows into sand molds positioned over hot ashes, the furnace heat intensified through long tubes in an ancient dance of breath and fire. When the molds break away, they reveal surfaces that bear the memory of their making – textures impossible to achieve through industrial processes, each console bearing unique traces of its birth.

This embrace of imperfection positions EWE Studio within a broader movement toward craft authenticity in contemporary design. While mass production promises consistency, the Exhuma collection celebrates variation, each piece carrying subtle differences that speak to human touch. The volcanic stone base, hand-selected and minimally worked, maintains the raw power of geological time while supporting surfaces refined through ancestral metallurgical wisdom.