Mischief Reef
— — a reef argued over by capitals.
Not only on a wall.
“An atoll at the eastern edge of the Spratlys, once a ring of coral and a tide-marked lagoon. Since 2015 the lagoon has been ringed by a runway and a harbour wall, the original reef largely buried under dredged sand. A place argued over in courtrooms and warships. The South China Sea light still reads the same off the water.
Mischief Reef, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Mischief Reef, known in Chinese as Meiji Jiao, sits at the eastern edge of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, roughly 250 kilometres west of Palawan in the Philippines. Originally a low-tide coral atoll enclosing a shallow lagoon about ten kilometres across, the reef was a fishing shelter known to Filipino fishermen as Panganiban. Since 1995 it has been under Chinese administration; large-scale dredging from 2014 to 2016 produced an artificial island of roughly 5.6 square kilometres above the original reef. The feature is claimed by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
Before construction the lagoon held clear water about six metres deep and a working reef ecosystem of soft corals, giant clams, and reef fish. The reef rim itself was dolomitic coral built up over millennia. Dredging operations between 2014 and 2016 removed an estimated 14 million cubic metres of sand and coral from the lagoon floor to raise the island above sea level. The 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling at The Hague described the resulting environmental change as severe and lasting, and a breach of obligations under the Law of the Sea.
In July 2016 the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled, in a case brought by the Philippines, that Mischief Reef is a low-tide elevation and not capable of generating territorial waters of its own. The tribunal also found the construction work had caused serious harm to the reef environment and was inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. China declined to participate in the proceedings and rejected the ruling. The reef remains under Chinese administration with an airfield, harbour, and supporting facilities.