Fin Basin
Objects | Bath
Slabs of leathered black slate stood one behind another: a single slab from the front, slab, gap, slab from the side.
- Medium
- leathered black slate
- Category
- Objects | Bath
- Year
- 2026
Fin Basin
Nine slabs of leathered black slate stand one behind another, parallel to the front, with a gap between each, and together they are a washbasin. From the front it is a single slab. From the side it is slab, gap, slab, gap, like the pages of a book held upright. Water from the tap falls through the gaps into a basin hung inside, so the top is not a bowl but a comb, and the washing happens between the fins.
Each slab is a little narrower than the one in front of it, so the side of the basin steps back like a stack of pages seen from the edge. The slate is black with a leathered surface, a textured finish that reads as soft under the hand and does not show water marks. Twenty millimetres is thin for a slab this tall, and the nine of them together make a block that is stiff in both directions. The gaps let light through from behind, and in low sun the basin throws nine stripes on the floor.
Straight on: one slab, and the tap above it.
It stands free in a bathroom, against a wall or a window, and the hands go in from the front, over the first slab. There is no bowl to clean, because the water goes between the fins to the basin below and the slate is wiped with a cloth. A basin is normally one hollow thing; this one is nine flat things, and the hollow is the space between them.
On the sheet the slabs are drawn apart, so the step from one to the next can be read. The detail is the gap. It is wider than the slab, so from the side the basin is more air than stone, and it is the width through which the water falls between the fins to the basin below.
Nine slabs 20 × 840 mm, 25 apart; the front 560 wide.
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