Tile Recorder puts forward a model of remote evidence-making that utilises the medium of ceramics to document chemical substances in the environment. It is a model that the citizens of Alentejo, in Southern Portugal, can implement into their own landscape to make a material documentation of the unjust practices of intensive agriculture that feature in this part of the country.

This work came about following a research enquiry that looked into the environmental and social impacts that olive and almond mono-crops have caused in the region.  These two mono-crop varieties dominate the landscape and provide the sites in which artificial substances from synthetic fertilisers and pesticides enter into natural spaces. The application of these chemical substances is to assist with the production of the crop, but in doing so, both land and water environments become contaminated and start to degrade.
   
The project recognises that not only are the local citizens bearing witness to these moments of environmental contamination, but they are in-fact being exposed themselves on a daily basis to the chemicals that are released from these intense practices of agriculture. Tile Recorder essentially provides the citizens of Alentejo with a ceramic tool that allows for those impacted to voice their  struggles and make others aware of the experiences that they face in the region.

Tile recorder asks the following questions; To what extent are environmental research practices, those that are conventionally confined to the professional domains of biological and earth sciences, able to exist outside of these domains and into the hands of citizens? How could a non-expert conduct a strategy for environmental research as a way of gaining and sharing knowledge of the places they occupy?

This model of environmental recording employs ceramics as a means to collect material data. The ceramic devices are strategically placed into environment where chemical and biological particles will be able to reside within their pores in a process of deposition. The placement of the ceramic device is determined by what the citizens feel is the most appropriate place in order to capture particulates; this could be on the ground, on a fence or in a tree. It is important to note that the form in which this ceramic recording device will take is that of a tile, given the role that tiles have played in the depiction of past events in Portuguese culture.




The tile can allow the practice of research and the collection of data to operate in a way that is not only free from the functional requirements that are associated with ordinary research tools, whether that be technical know-how or some prescribed operation, but instead be able to work so that the users of the tiles have full autonomy with how and where exactly these research devices will be situated, and for what reasons. This raises the point, therefore, that this method of research isn’t just a practice of recording for the sake of knowledge, but also as a means of bringing forward a particular site or condition that should be made known to a wider population.

From here some further questions can be raised: Can a low-tech device that makes use of natural materials, such as clay, be a viable way to create a system of recording, where the device in question does without the need for any electrical input or digital parts? This question builds on the fact that ceramics have the material qualities to endure extended periods exposed to outdoor environments, and so by utilising the ceramic medium, research practices needn’t worry about the many weather-related variables that might impede the recording, such that a technical mishap might occur. The next question asks; Is it possible for a research practice to not only be tasked with the pursuit of data and later acquiring of knowledge but also the identification and disclosure of a site of particular environmental significance, where the conditions of such should receive more attention? This last question introduces an essential political element within the proposal, whereby the site of environmental recording could point towards an unjust condition or situated violation.

The undulating form of the ceramic surface reflects the undulating surface of the vast plots of agriculture that feature across the region of Alentejo. Both of these surfaces are replicable at scale, though it is the tile that provides the means to resist


Handmade Azulejo Tile
Ceramic
2022


The black and white images presented on the right document the sites where tiles have been positioned in the first phase of ceramic tile placement. They are currently at these sites and will continue to be in these positions until collected to take a reading of the chemical or biological substances within the ceramic pores.

Rosa’s house is situated a couple of hundred meters away from a factory in Fortes Novos that incinerates olive bagasse. As a result, her property lies in a place where ash and soot particles are constantly deposited downwards. This is not only tarnishing the qualities of her house, but is also detrimental to her health. For Rosa, the tile is the means to make a recording of the environment she is in which may be similar to someone else near another of Alentejo’s bagasse incineration factories.

The project allows for a community to build where the point of mutual relation is how everyones Azulejo tile has been contaminated. This Project is a means for a larger community of people to resist the ongoing intensification of mono-crop agriculture in Alentejo, Southern Portugal.