Inspired by the art of still-life painting, in which symbolic everyday items are arranged across a canvas, Jimenez Lai of Los Angeles–based studio Bureau Spectacular crafted a series of limited-edition furnishings to adorn the exhibition “Shadows of Things We Wished We Had,” held at Chicago’s Volume Gallery in November.

Produced by Urban Fabric Rugs, the show’s eponymous three-metre-wide circular pink carpet encapsulates this driving concept with a pattern of blush, hand-tufted shapes and their cobalt shadows, which, upon closer inspection, are representations of selected pieces from the line.

As its moniker suggests, the rug doesn’t depict any real objects; instead, it’s replete with silhouettes cast by additional planar forms. From a water tank–like trace emerging from behind a circle to a tilted square revealing a stepped projection, they compose a 21st-century still life that’s at once everything and nothing at all.