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Young Artists with Artitude 2009
Winner of the YAWA 2009 Award
Fundraising for the Telethon Speech & Hearing
Lobby of InterContinental Perth Burswood
22 June - 17 July 2009
Open Studios Day
Old Customs House, Fremantle
26 October, 2008
8.08: ECU Mid-Year Visual Arts Graduate Exhibition
Spectrum Project Space, Northbridge
20th - 29th June 2008
"Annie Hsiao-Wen Wang's paintings were carefully realised, colourful and emotive works of hypnotic power."
- Bellwether, G. Pryor (ed.).
Click here to see 8.08 interview (Southern Gazette)
Ghosts and Shadows: death of the Rickshaw era in Dhaka?
Dhaka, Bangladesh
January 2008
(In January 2008 I travelled to Dhaka to cover a photojournalism story on rickshaws from the view point of eco-friendly transportation.)
Click here to see images for the story.
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"A rickshaw ride is the quintessential Bangladeshi experience."
– The Lonely Planet
Meet Mohammed Selim: aged 39, a Geneva Refugee Camp resident and a day-time rickshaw-wallah with a hesitant smile and a kind face. Hindi is his first language, and when asked where his home is, he replies that he has "no home, no country". Instead, like 20,000 other families at the Geneva Camp, Selim, his wife and four sons have made their home out of a three-by-three meter room for the last twenty-five years.
The room is small, but clean and tidy. There is a kitchen and basin to the left as you walk in the door, a cabinet at the end wall to store all of the family’s belongings, and a small television perched on the top. Selim pulls up the only two chairs he owns and invites his guests into his home.
On an average day, Selim pulls a rickshaw that he hires for 50 taka between 6am and 12pm, earning between 80 to 150 taka. After he returns home, he tries to find some day-labourer jobs around the area in the afternoon. Selim’s eldest son of fourteen years is the only other income earner in the family, working as a mechanic at the local garage. The other three sons, aged 3, 5 and 6, are too young to work and school is not an option for them at all as it is too expensive.
Selim’s story is typical of a rickshaw-wallah in Dhaka. Amongst the most marginalised members of the community, these hardworking men are not given the credit and the respect that they deserve. Rickshaw-wallahs are like ghosts and shadows in the Dhaka community – most of us middle-class patrons do not even take the time to look at our last rickshaw-wallah’s face. Often in the streets of Dhaka you can see rickshaw-wallahs being abused and beaten by the traffic police and even by the patrons.
No one is sure of exactly how many rickshaws there are in Dhaka. According to the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), there are currently 79,554 registered rickshaws in the city. However, it is suspected that there are thousands of unregistered rickshaws on the roads. DCC has resolved to restrict the licensing of rickshaws and has not issued any new licenses since 1986. As a result, the number of illegal rickshaws on the roads of Dhaka grows every year. Almost all rickshaw-wallahs do not own their own rickshaws, but hire from the owners of a rickshaw garage for a large security deposit. As such, rickshaw-wallahs live in the fear of encountering traffic police who have the power to confiscate their rickshaws; and despite the miniscule income that they make daily, they must put aside an amount for bribes.
Sk. Quddusahmed of Urban Planning Division claims that DCC has a "good attitude" towards rickshaws in Dhaka, but continues to restrict rickshaw access in a growing number of VIP roads in order to control the traffic flow in Dhaka. Confiscated rickshaws are transferred to a rickshaw dumping station in Agargaon. "In the long run," Sk. Quddusahmed explained, "there are plans to distribute the evicted rickshaws to the poor villages outside of Dhaka". When probed further, Mr Quddusahmed could not indicate the timeframe of such a long-term plan. Instead, thousands of rickshaws now sit amongst growing weed in the rickshaw graveyard, their once-brilliant colours fading in the sun and their chassis now rusting and rotting in the rain.
To a foreigner who owns her own car and belongs to a nation that is ranked as the worst greenhouse gas polluter1, I see rickshaws as an environmental, as well as cultural, asset of Bangladesh. It appears that other nations in the west are beginning to follow the Asian example, as various forms of "BicyTaxis" and "PediCabs" begin to appear in most large European cities and in New York.
A reform in the way traffic and rickshaws are dealt with should be called upon in Dhaka, and rickshaw-wallahs should be given the rights and respect that they deserve. Officials should begin to realise the importance of rickshaws as an eco-friendly mode of transportation, as well as contributing to the economy, the job market, and adding to the overall cultural experience of Bangladesh. Appropriate management and planning is the key to sustaining such an asset, which will otherwise disappear and be lost forever.
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1 November 2007, based on power station emission.
