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Textiles:

·      Annabas/Fustian, (a strong fabric often patterned, used for sheets, blankets)

·      Atlas, (a fine silk; striped)

·      "Broulissen", (coloured linen from India)

·      Caffa, (decorated silk or cotton)

·      Cassa, (loosely woven fine form of cotton, often from the Bengals)

·      Guinees, (a coarse and heavy cotton, AKA "negroskleed").

·      Lemianasses, (European cloth, blue with white stars)

·      "Linguettes", (a type of cord used in the seams of clothing)

·      "Perpetuanes", a very strong 'sergelike' fabric from Portugal

·      Raw Guinees, unbleached cotton fabric

·      Saai (Dutch for 'boring'), a woolen fabric, a cheap and simple sheet

·      "Sleepsheets", used sheets.

Metal products:

·      Armbands, also called 'manillas', that were open on one side. Originally intended as jewelry, they were later also used as a trade instrument and as raw material by African smiths.

·      Firearms

·      Copper bars, (as jewelry)

·      Knives

·      Copper or tin bowls

·      Spanish bowls

Other goods:

·      Alcohol

·      Gunpowder (300lbs (136kg) of gunpowder)

·      Beads

·      Mirrors

·      Flints, (for rifles)

·      Kauri shells (trade instrument)

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Excerpt: The Leusden Trade Manifest

Documentation exists for the Leusden; a slave ship having made nine full round trips on the triangle-route, before the ship foundered and sank at the mouth of the Marowin river on her tenth voyage. The list of trade goods is indicative for the slave trade in the early part of the 18th century for which goods were exchanged for human beings in West Africa.

The memory of the past tells us what we owe to our future.
This is an excavation of ancestry and wounds laid bare, juxtaposed with knowing and confronting the future. At some point the past must be acknowledged; even if the present is shaped by unspeakable tragedy, it is the wells from which future generations drink.
We cannot move forward without resolve.

The title "[blank] ≥" refers to the cost of an African (during the 1800s) in relation to the items used to trade for them on the African coast. This work serves as a part of a greater narrative of the illegal slave ship the Trouvadour on it's final journey and the last slaves to arrive in the Turks and Caicos islands. The Collection is titled: "Tears of the Trouvadore"

The compostion of the piece links the relationship of the possible royal lineage of the captured slave and future labours via the symbolism of tears; composed of salt and water. The tears also serve as a precursor to the sea that will transport the African to the "new world" and also represents his anger, pain and adversarial stance in the face of the unknown. The foliage is indicative of the home he has been ripped from that will now live in him.