Satch Hoyt

At the beginning of the eighteenth century most of Britain’s slave merchants were from London and Bristol, but by the time of abolition in 1807 Liverpool had become the dominant European slave-trading port. The growth of the port and the prosperity of the city, its merchants and its citizens were the direct results of the slave trade. This legacy infuses the fabric of Liverpool – its docks and its buildings as well as its street names.

Slavery and the concomitant creation of the African Diaspora are central to Satch Hoyt’s contribution to International 04. The Triangle (2004) referred to the triangular trade of raw materials, goods and human cargo between Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas. Hoyt drew upon the site-specific resonances of Liverpool’s Albert Dock to evoke the historical suffering caused in the production of the commodities of cotton, tobacco and sugar. The Triangle recalled the ‘double consciousness’ in what Paul Gilroy called ‘the Black Atlantic’ and sounds the cross-cultural rhythms that permeate contemporary questions of black identity.

The Triangle, 2004
Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial 2004
Exhibited at the Albert Dock