Tracey Thorne
Intended for Jamaica
2024- Selected Works
Photograph: Cyanotype, Denbigh Jamaica montage over original engine drawing. Letters (c1790s) from the Boulton & Watt Collection, (2023), Tracey Thorne
'On the basis of some information and a little guess work you journey to a site to see what remains were left behind and to reconstruct the world that these remains imply...to yield up a king of truth.'
The Site of Memory, Toni Morrison
Intended for Jamaica is an artist-led body of work that has responded to unseen archives held in the Boulton and Watt Collection at the Library of Birmingham and informed by fieldwork in Jamaica.
The new work focuses on challenging dominant, prevailing narratives about Birmingham’s industrial heritage and, sets out to recover the erased histories of enslavement and imperialism that are entangled within this history.
The work seeks to shed light on the sale of the Boulton and Watt Co. steam engines from Soho Foundry near Birmingham to sugar plantations in Jamaica. It is an illustrative and reflective exploration that focuses on the power of bringing together historical artefacts and organising them in a way that connects them to the sites that they are associated with to 'yield up a kind of truth'.
Photograph: The Spanish Have Landed, St Ann, Jamaica, (2019) Tracey Thorne
Photograph: Loading Sugarcane on the wall of Frome Sugar Factory, Westmoreland, Jamaica, (2022), Tracey Thorne
Sugar Pavillion, Denbigh Agricultural Ground, Denbigh, Clarendon, 2023, Tracey Thorne. Site of historic enslavement owned by Lord Penrhyn
Plan of a Steam Engine, Lord Penrhyn, Jamaica, 1790, erected on his Denbigh sugar plantation by an unknown manufacturer. Lord Penrhyn was one of the first plantation owners to use a steam engine to power his sugar mill in Jamaica and was party to the subscription scheme developed in c1780 between Jamaican planters and James Watt. Engine drawning copyright: Institute of Mechanics, BAW/3/1.
Blueprint Boulton & Watt Order Book cyanotype using a photograph of the original volume in the Boulton & Watt Collection, (2023), Tracey Thorne
Cyanotype: Copy of the proposed subscription scheme Particulars of Engines sent to Boulton & Watt in 1790 - correspondence between Samuel Whitbread and the enslaver W Dawkins,
(2023) Tracey Thorne
Blueprint Fragment of Boulton & Watt page from the Catalogue of Old Engines cyanotype from the section marked Engines Supplied to Sugar Plantations, (2023), Tracey Thorne
Blueprint Drax Hall, Jamaica (2023) cyanotype made in response to an original engine drawing (c1841) in the Boulton & Watt Collection, (2023), Tracey Thorne
Blueprint Worthy Park, Jamaica cyanotype made in response to an original engine drawing (c1845) in the Boulton & Watt Collection, (2023), Tracey Thorne
Cyanotype: Recovering the Past James Watt Junior montage with sugar plantation names connected to the Boulton & Watt steam engines that he supplied from Soho Foundry, to Jamaica, 2023, Tracey Thorne
Cyanotype: James Watt montage that explores his entanglements with slavery, steam power, sugar and Jamaica, Tracey Thorne, (2023) Intended for Jamaica
Ralph Walkers Sugar Mill with a Steam Engine sent to James Watt Junior (1816) from the Boulton & Watt collection, MS3147/5/1355a, Intended for Jamaica
Laing & Andersons Steam Engine for a sugar mill 1814 in a folder marked Pirates & Other Engineers Engines shows the enslaved operator that is invisible in the Boulton & Watt drawings and history, MS3147/5/1353 next to a cyanotype fragment of a Boulton & Watt pump cylinder supplied to Dry River Estate (1821) MS3147/5/833, Intended for Jamaica
Golden Grove Sugar Factory, Duckenfield Farm, St Thomas, 2022, Tracey Thorne. Boulton & Watt Engine was sold to Duckenfield Farm in 1850.
On the Road to Worthy Park Sugar Estate
Worthy Park Sugar Estate
Kingston Harbour
On the Road to Worthy Park Sugar Estate
Selected Photographs: from the series
Intended for Jamaica, 2024
Photographs: Hyde Hall Great House, from the series
Intended for Jamaica, 2024, Tracey Thorne
About the Artist Work
The artist's new body of photographic work includes creation of cyanotypes (blueprints), representing a creative and reflective response to archival materials and field trips in Jamaica. The intention is to delve into the intricate connections between Birmingham and Jamaica by exploring locations (sites) where steam engines were sold. The themes explored in this artistic work connect to issues relating to place, collective memory, and colonialism, with an emphasis on both environmental and social legacies.
The use of cyanotypes, a photographic printing process known for its distinctive blue colour, aims to evoke a sense of historical documentation and symbolise the intertwining of past and present, echoing the historical significance of the steam engines in Jamaica.
The project's visual narrative, using photography and cyanotypes, seeks to excavate layers of history and memory in the context of Jamaica. The act, in this context, involves a careful and deliberate exploration of the remnants of the colonial era and the legacy of the steam engines in Jamaica.
The work is currently being exhibited in a new exhibition at The Library of Birmingham in 2024 called Intended for Jamaica . The exhibition has been extended until 14 December 2024 - details here
The project is supported with a grant from Arts Council England. See an earlier blog made at the start of the project published in 2022 here - Sugarland
Exhibition Installation Images and Bibliography with additional notes are available here
Intended for Jamaica Photographic Essays
The artist research resulted in the development of extensive body of work that given the history of Boulton & Watt and plantation sites in Jamaica was too much to fully explore in the exhibition. Therefore, this led me to start to write a series of photo essays that I hope to complete by mid August. These are available on my blog but listed below for easy.
Dem Tell Me What They Want to Tell me
James Watt: Power, Steam & Sugar
Cane Cutting in Jamaica - Midgham Sugar Plantation
The Past is Present - Gren Park Plantation
Discovering Helen Caddicks - Native Sugar Mill Jamaica Print