This project is an exploration of the sugar estate in Guyana where my grandfather worked for 15 years, through the eyes of its most undervalued employees: the cane cutters. The sugar industry in Guyana has had an immense impact on the country’s history, and, by extension, on the history of Britain, the main beneficiary of the industry for nearly two centuries.

The sugar industry was nationalised in 1976, but the conditions for cane cutters have not changed much since colonial times. Sugar is still harvested by hand—the hours are long, the work dangerous, the pay meagre. Despite this, the cane cutters continue to work the fields of these estates, which have been harvested by generations of Guyanese workers, indentured servants, and slaves before them.

In some cases, such as at the Rose Hall Estate where this project was shot, the sugar estate represents the primary source of employment for the inhabitants of the surrounding villages. The history of these villages is inseparable from that of the estate—one is actually called the village of Cane Field—and, in a sense, its inhabitants are captive to an historical cycle of systematic exploitation that dates back centuries.

Since 2015, when a transformational offshore oil discovery was made in Guyana, sugar production has declined by over 70%. Many sugar estates have been shut down since then, and the future of the industry hangs in the balance. On estates that do survive the next decade, mechanised harvesters may soon replace cane cutters—the future of a centuries-old occupation remains uncertain.

At its core, this project is about labour. It is an attempt to document a form of labour that has greatly influenced the history of two countries, as well as an ode to the people behind this labour, their dignity in the face of continued exploitation, and the life of the communities in which they live.