Beneath Tiles - Photography and Documenting the Reveal

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, 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.