Over Autumn and Winter we have had recent and repetitive flooding at our home, and pooled water has leaked beneath the tile, requiring the need for comprehensive replacement in a dryer season. It’s spring now, and last week a guy with a small jack-hammer systematically fractured the pale ceramic surface, dumping the freshly pointed chips in several plastic baskets for removal. In the afternoon I surveyed the day’s progress.
With the tile eliminated, the raked masonry gripped nothing above, revealing a now unreciprocated material relationship - for a long time the cement-based adhesive had anchored the tiles while the stabilized tiles themselves protected and preserved the underlying structure. But now, as I looked, I felt a practical, architectural absence. There was necessary repair in progress, but also revelation, like looking at the innards of a stopped watch. And when I started to document the site with my camera, I was reminded of dermatoglyphics.
I felt like I was documenting some liminal archaeological site, with some form of identity beneath - gesture, historical and architectural development, time, form and environment. And all this mapped and exposed for so little time. The next day my dermatoglyphs were poured over with a fresh layer of remedial concrete and sealed with a new, greyer field of tile. I was glad to have taken photographs when I did.