17/08/2026
• Story time, and the beginning of an archival project ⚜️
I am extremely fascinated by decorative tiles. It's one of my inspirations. Probably because of the amazing tiles I grew up around in Cambodia, they were everywhere.
The range of designs and colours is INSANE!
They were a vivid and psychedelic background to our everyday life.
During my Art Therapy course I took time to try and re-create these tile designs.
It was a bittersweet experience, nostalgic but also yucky as I felt physical memories come back of a significant head trauma from fainting on these tiles... one of their unfortunate drawbacks 🧠😵💫❤️🩹
Trying to draw them correctly was so difficult! New appreciation for the mesmerising tile craft! They could have also come from Hong Kong, as elements of my house had a Chinese design - but Cambodia has an iconic industry of producing them too.
Our house was an old mansion that had been split up into 5 different apartments. Open air flow meant we could always hear neighbours cooking, talking, and doing intense renovations (drills and hammers coming through the ceiling)... and they could hear me singing reeeally loud, as I always used to do!
These tiles have connections all over the world. The modern technique was apparently brought to SE Asia from France. There are also strong tile industries/histories in the Middle East and South Asia. Check out . And of course beyond recent history - tile craft is an ancient art dating back many thousands of years.
I haven't even said anything about the wrought ironwork that still shows up in my dreams, you can see some of it in the breakdancing photo. If I could go back just to devotedly photograph every architecture and design detail in the country, I would ✨️
Sorry guys regrettably I don't speak Khmer very well re. vocabulary aspect of the language, so I don't know what this Ros Sereysothea / Sinn Sisamuth song is actually saying 😂😂 hopefully it fits!