Monuments to the work of Bangladeshi migrants
An estimated 9.4m Bangladeshis have left the country to seek employment abroad. Their experiences are being chronicled in poetry and art.
Diana Campbell Betancourt, the artistic director and chief curator of the Dhaka Art Summit, says that “one cannot understand Bangladesh without considering these workers.” All too often, they are abused and overworked, treated as slaves or indentured servants. “These workers give so much with their labour, and they need to be seen as more than just bodies,” she says. The Dhaka summit shows that they are not only more than bodies, fully human, but artists, too.
Kamruzzaman Shadhin, a Bangladeshi artist, collected the abandoned clothes of Bangladeshis who were illegally trafficked into Malaysia and Thailand, tapping an internal migrant community in Thakurgaon to stitch them together into a giant patchwork quilt (pictured, top). Liu Xiaodong, a Chinese artist, paints portraits of migrant workers in a medium often reserved for powerful patrons. In one, a bearded man looks over his shoulder with a wary face and a cigarette in his mouth against a blue background (pictured). In another, a gaunt man with sunken cheeks is a picture of exhaustion, his eyes bloodshot from working long hours. Mr Liu’s work humanises these workers, but does not glamourise their suffering.
https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/1280-width/20180303_BKP502.jpg 
https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/1280-width/images/2018/02/blogs/prospero/20180303_bkp503_facebook.jpg Et de la #poésie :
Mr Khokan never strayed from his writing roots, and needed a way to express his experiences in a creative manner. He founded Amrakajona (“We Are” in Bengali) as a group for Bengali migrant workers interested in poetry, as well as another poetry group, Singapore Bengali Literature. The Dhaka Art Summit, which ran from February 2nd-10th in the dusty, congested Bangladeshi capital, showcased poetry from members of Singapore Bengali Literature. Mr Khokon read “Pocket 2”, a lament for his wife and their forced separation:
I remember when I returned this time
my heart dissolved in your tears
The pocket of my shirt was wet
Reaching the end of my memories
I wear that shirt every night
and write love poems to you
MD Sharrif Uddin, another poet, addressed the invisibility of the migrant worker directly:
Though my tears satisfy the thirst of the city,
It will forget me by and by!
But like the waters on the high waves of the river,
I’ll survive and I’ll be there.
The sweat of my tired body has
Become the moisture of the city,
and in this moisture, I’ll survive.
I live forever.
▻https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2018/02/constructing-identities?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/monumentstotheworkofbangladeshimigrantsconstructingidentities
#migrants_bangladais #migrations #travailleurs_étrangers #monument #art #esclavage_moderne (ping @reka) #exploitation #exil #poésie
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