Tomorrow between 13:10-13:50 I will giving a lunch-time talk at Société Jersiaise about my trip this summer to Central American researching and making new work in response to Jersey Mahogany Cutters and Merchant Trade in Belize and Honduras. This work is part of The Seaflower Venture - a transatlantic project exploring the history of Jersey’s cod fishing trade with Canada and its international merchant networks in the West Indies, South America and Mediterranean. 

Both my long term projects The Seaflower Venture and Masterplan (work currently exhibited in TAXED TO THE MAX at Noorderlicht) explore Jersey’s original wealth acquired through its historical maritime trade and contemporary prosperity as an International Finance Centre with capital inflows derived across multiple jurisdictions and financial markets. Together they proposes to re-address parts of the legacy upon which the islands’s economic growth and development in the past, present and future has been told.

If island bound you can come along tomorrow to find out more about Jersey mariners extracting mahogany wood from the dense forests of British Honduras and bringing it to market in Europe. Alternatively, visit my site here. https://www.martintoft.com/the-seaflower-venture

Images: Joshua Gabourel who left Jersey for Belize in 1789 and the census records of 1820 showing his offsprings William and Joshua Gabourels slave populations, courtesy of Belizean Archives and Record Services