Banaba Island
— — the island the phosphate took.
Not only on a wall.
“A single raised coral island in the central Pacific, far west of the Gilbert chain that makes up the rest of Kiribati. For most of the twentieth century its phosphate cap was mined out and shipped to Australia and New Zealand. The Banaban community was relocated to Rabi, in Fiji, after the Second World War. Around three hundred people remain.
Banaba Island, 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.
Banaba, also called Ocean Island, is a single raised coral island in the central Pacific, about three hundred kilometres west of Nauru and roughly four hundred kilometres west of the nearest Gilbert Islands. The island is small, around six square kilometres, and rises to an interior plateau of roughly eighty metres above sea level. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati but lies far outside the Gilbert chain that holds most of the country's population. Resident population is estimated at around three hundred people, mostly subsistence.
Phosphate mining ran on Banaba from 1900 to 1979, first under the Pacific Phosphate Company and then under the British Phosphate Commissioners. Roughly twenty million tonnes were shipped out to fertilise farmland in Australia and New Zealand. During the Second World War a Japanese occupation killed most of the remaining islanders; after the war the British relocated the surviving Banaban community to Rabi Island in Fiji, where their descendants still live today. The island's interior is largely worked-out pinnacles of bare coral.
There are no regular passenger flights or ferries to Banaba. Access is by occasional supply ship from Tarawa, the Kiribati capital, roughly fifteen hundred kilometres east; passages run a few times a year and depend on weather and cargo. The island has no hotel, one school, and a small clinic. Most communication runs through high-frequency radio. The Banabans on Rabi return periodically for ceremonial visits and family matters, but the on-island population stays around three hundred and largely keeps to itself.