The Broken Trade Winds
Installation and video works, 2022-2023.

The transatlantic slave trade was a global phenomenon resulting in the forcible deportation of an estimated 12.5 million Africans to the Americas between the 16th and 19thcenturies. Britain’s part in this trade was considerable; more than 3 million Africans crossed the Atlantic on British slave ships. From 1750 to 1807,Britain was Europe’s leading slave trading nation, and Liverpool was the world’s most prolific slaving port.

Parallel to this boom, the demand for Liverpool pottery depicting slave ships increased in the late 18th century. These artifacts provide important insights into both the aspirations of those directly involved in the slave trade and the contemporary understanding of the slave trade itself. They also point to the emergence of a material culture that actively supported slavery.

Based on this historical and archaeological research, Al Shazly started my four-part artistic project, The Broken Trade Winds, to comment on the history of excellence in the porcelain industry and how it intersects with the legacy of slavery in Britain and the African diaspora.

The project consists of four parts, The Diagram, Reanimating the archive, The Middle Passage and A history of excellence.

Featured in the exhibitions at UJ Gallery, University Johannesburg 2023, curated by Eugene Hon and Ruth Sacks.
Featured in the exhibitions at The Africa Centre, curated by Najlaa Elageli and Tewa Barnosa.

The Diagram
18th and 19th century English blue and white earthenware fragments and mixed media. 180 × 110 × 15 cm.

The work is composed of fragments of English blue and white ceramics and mixed media that ultimately form a map of the slave voyages across the Atlantic. The fragments are shown stacked to illustrate that there is a particular focus on the export of earthenware from England to Africa and the prevalent popularity of such products in that historical period (the British officially took control of Egypt in 1882).
These pieces address remnants of colonialism evident at dining tables and the persistent propagation of imperialistic thought patterns through replicated motifs and ornamentation.
The diagram reflects traumatic history and cultural monopolies; through these unrefined shards of English ‘China’ plates, it is a critique of the original trade that enriched the Empire while exploiting so many people.

Reanimating the archive
Transfer print on ceramic plates.

The work features depictions, on dinner plates, of contemporary immigrants in boats at sea in a wall piece of plates. It is a metaphor that reintroduces one of the most famous patterns called TRADE WINDS; a pattern of a massive merchant ship, printed on white earthenware. This piece was made by SPODE England circa 1959 specifically for the American market, the main destination for most of the slaves imported from Africa in the past.

At the work's core lies impact of historical domination of ordinary facets of our daily lives. The dinner table, a global symbol of community, unity, and sharing, becomes a figurative location images of the contemporary immigrants and refugees, in such a way that suggests the shape of the part of the ocean that African immigrants cross to get to Europe.
Using the same old printing technique, transfer printing, which depends on repetition and trial and error, is an attempt not to forget the ongoing processes of decimation, displacement, violence, and marginalization as forms of colonial debris in the present and throughout history.

The Middle Passage - A History of Excellence
Video artwork (5 min 21 sec)
Video artwork (2 min 57 sec)

The two video installations are extensions of each other, with the first video'' A History of Excellence '' showing British crockery, whole and heroic. Itrevolves around what the artist calls "colonial remnants in everydaydinning" and "imperial thought processes” by showing aquintessentially carefully collected British product.

The video attempts to illuminate the symbiosis between economicdynamics, material culture and the narratives of colonial history. The secondvideo, 'The Middle Passage', shows the stretch of ocean known for the agonisingdeaths of migrants, and highlights how the experience of material goods waslinked to the experience of slaves on the ship. Both videos are broughttogether in one installation.