A trading card is made to be handled. Its illustration also deserves time to be seen.
This collection brings those two ways of encountering an object together. The cards belong to a game, with names, rules and uses. They are also printed surfaces: pictures shaped by an artist, a frame, an edition and, sometimes, the changing reflection of foil.
The Room of Shiny Cardboard presents Hykarl Sufardi’s collection as a continuous exhibition. Each physical copy has a place. A repeated card remains visible because a collection consists of particular objects, not only a list of different names.
Landscape as an entrance
The lands lead the exhibition. They offer a way into its scale: skies, inhabited places, roads, shadows and cultivated ground, held within a small rectangle. The chapter sequence is an interpretation of the images, rather than an official chronology of Magic’s stories.
Within each chapter, cards remain with their printed set and follow collector-number order. This allows related editions to be read together. A name may recur while the artist, composition or treatment changes; the edition label makes that difference visible.
Figures follow landscapes, then objects, enchantments and spells. The token retains its own place at the end. Neither price nor rarity determines the order of the exhibition.
The individual printing
Each label identifies the card, credited illustrator, edition, collector number and finish. The year belongs to the printing’s release record. Artist credits and edition records are supplied through Scryfall; they are distinct from the gallery’s own commentary.
The displayed images are reproductions of the relevant printings. They are not condition photographs of the individual cards, and a screen cannot reproduce the changing reflection of a physical foil. The original stack photograph is retained as a record of the collection’s beginnings. Hykarl reports that the cards are triple-sleeved.
Readings by the crew
Short readings accompany the exhibition in the voices of Hotel Sufardi’s crew: Selina, Baby V, Rachel, Tanya, Miss Watson, Miss Q and Zara. Each offers a point of attention—an edge, a route, a gesture, a change in light.
These are original interpretations written for the gallery in fictional character voices. They are not quotations from the artists or independent reviews by other AI services. The purpose is to open another way of looking, while leaving the visitor free to see something else.
A collection in progress
The first documented group contained one hundred cards. The current catalogue records 324 physical copies across 300 printing-and-finish entries. As further cards are scanned and published, the exhibition will expand at this same address.
A dated trade reference sits beneath each work and in the separate register. MYR figures follow Hykarl’s local convention: Card Kingdom’s USD reference multiplied by three. These figures assist an exchange; they do not determine a picture’s place on the wall.
The collection is open to card-for-card trade enquiries. There are no cash sales or cash top-ups. Printing, condition and availability are confirmed with the collector before an exchange.