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Transports of delight. The ricksha arts of Bangladesh
by Joanna Kirkpatrick
Bloomington and Indianopolis: Indiana University Press, 2003. CD-ROM for Windows/PC Computers
website
Review by Lakshmi Srinivas
in Visual Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2, October 2005
Joanna Kirkpatrick first began anthropological fieldwork in Bangladesh in 1976 following fieldwork in India in the mid-1960s. It was when she was teachinganthropology at Rajshahi University and on a fellowshipto to study educated working women that she became fascinated with the brightly-coloured rickshas whichferry both goods and people in Bangladesh. In tracing the history of her study Kirkpatrick draws attention to the by-the-way nature in which popular culture and thepopular arts frequently become the subject of scholarly study. Johannes Fabian, for example, has commented on his interest in popular culture in Shaba in Zaire whichdeveloped only after he had spent time in the region studying a religious movement and subsequent to his becoming further acquainted with the culture and the society (Fabian 1998); Mimi Herbert's work on Javanese puppet-masters also stems from simply 'being there' and her growing acquaintance with the art and with artists (Herbert 2002). Fascination with ricksha art drew Kirkpatrick back to Bangladesh; she made several tripsbetween the mid-1970s and 1998, during which time she photographed and collected ricksha art. Many of these pieces have now found their way to the Museum of International Folk Art in New Mexico.
The result of Kirkpatrick's interest is Transports of Delight, an exploration of ricksha paintings as a vibrant folk-popular art form, and a visual feast with hundreds of coloured photographs in an interactive CD-ROM. The format allows not only the inclusion of multiple images inserted as illustrations in the discussion, but also several viewing galleries, which support the text. The CD-ROM is organized into four main sections: ageneral introduction followed by 'Ricksha art images', 'Streets and views' and finally 'Readings' which presents the author's critical reflections on her study as well as writings by other scholars on conveyance arts in South Asia, a bibliography and a glossary. Each of the main sections is organized into sub-sections, which are in turn elaborated as themes in a nested arrangement. 'Ricksha art images', for instance, is divided into four subsections: (1) Setting the scene, (2) Ricksha imagery, (3)Comparisons and precedents, and (4) Chronology. The sub-section 'Comparisons and precedents' has eleven themes with a gallery of over 70 images. A staggering range of photo-images from an apparently inexhaustible database effectively brings the richness of this art form, and the broader culture it draws on, to the viewer.
Saddam Hussein on hood, Dhaka, 1992. Photograph by Kevin Bubriski.
One of the most valuable features of the interactive CDformat is the inclusion of moving images and sound. In the Introduction, the song 'Sonar Bangla' [correct title is 'Boro Shundor'. JK] sets the scene and mood; the section titled 'Streets and views', withfour videoclips each of 5-6 minutes of the streets of Dhaka, the surrounding countryside and of meetings with two artists, one Muslim and one Hindu, situates rickshaw art in context. The clips, shot with a hand-held camcorder, provide an experiential dimension whileintroducing movement, central to the understanding of this art form. Overall, the organization of discussion and visuals is very accessible and informative.
The art itself is a hybrid form that draws on past and present, and the familiar and not-so-familiar. Traditional motifs, surrounding landscapes, views of villages, waterfalls, animals and birds, cityscapes, and national and political events such as the liberation war,jostle for space with the all-pervasive movie images. Like cinema in South Asia, ricksha arts participate in a global mediascape (Appadurai 1996). Images culled from aglobal databank - kangaroos, Saddam Hussein, Big Ben and the names of western rock bands - contribute to an eclectic mix. There is free amalgamation of form andstyle as well as image. Ricksha artists reorganize and 're-render pictorial reference' using a 'depiction strategy' traceable to the seventh-century Buddhist painted narrative scroll, while the ''nicheing'' of decorative material' has its roots in '18th century Hindu terra cotta temples now in Bangladesh'. It is in this descriptive analysis and elaboration of the range and diversity of the artwork and its historical and cultural roots that 'Transports' makes its strongest contribution.
Ricksha paintings have much in common with other popular art forms such as calendar art and advertising as well as movie posters and the movies themselves. Movies provide continuity to ricksha art and have influenced imagery for decades. Heroes and villains, voluptuous beauties and 'danger women' dominate the 'people pictures', which were suppressed during periods of religious conservatism but made a come-back soon after.In 1998, Kirkpatrick found commercial photoprints of movie images stuck to the back of rickshas. 'Disco rickshas' play popular movie tunes; artists' homes and workshops are located near cinema halls and many ricksha artistes are inspired by movie posters asreference material and paint movie posters as well. Clearly there is a great deal of overlap between the fantasy world of popular cinema and ricksha art. Ricksha art appears to be one of the many sites of reception for cinema outside the theatre and one of theways in which movies are 'kaleidoscopically fragmented'(Jacob 1998) in South Asian public culture. An exploration of this important link would have been informative and fascinating. Describing movie posters as'garish' and 'based on the psychic model of frustrated sexual desire' and the movies themselves as 'neither subtle nor profound', Kirkpatrick explains away movie- inspired ricksha art as the 'yearnings of men for more erotic experiences'.
Movie scene with mod woman, Rajshahi, 1982. Photograph by Joanna Kirkpatrick.
Kirkpatrick reflects upon her fieldwork experience and some of the challenges she faced as a woman fieldworker in Dhaka. These descriptions are valuable for the glimpses they offer of the anthropologist in the field and for the questions they raise regarding empathy and access, including the degree to which Kirkpatrick was able to embrace the popular sensibility. We learn that linguistic limitations compounded problems of access to artists. The two brief interview encounters with ricksha artists do not give us a sense of the social world of the ricksha artist. Apart from a couple of references there is little detail on the making of ricksha art and on artists' perspectives on their work. We do not know, forinstance, how colours and themes are chosen. In Preminda Jacob's study of movie posters in South India, artists talk about using 'hot' versus 'cool' colours, the latter believed to convey glamour (Jacob 1998). But what of the colours on rickshas? Who decides what images will grace the rickshas? How long does it take to paint a panel? Do ricksha artists work all year round? Are there lean periods? What kinds of negotiations are there between owners of rickshas and artists? These are some of the questions that come to mind. Kirkpatrick notes that one of the most popular ricksha artists is Hindu but the reader would be interested to know if any caste or community is over-represented. Anethnographic perspective incorporating the voices of the artists would have thrown light on the production of ricksha art and its producers.
Kirkpatrick's analysis is informed by her background and interest in gender and identity in an Islamic society. She sees ricksha art as an expression of male desire; part of a public culture that is 'overwhelmingly male', in a society which demands the seclusion of women. Discussion is framed by attention to paradoxes and contradictions. Noting that the walls of houses and compounds in Muslim societies such as Bangladesh and Pakistan are blank and unembellished, Kirkpatrick seeks an explanation for the 'exuberance' of ricksha art and the 'overcrowding' of images on conveyances. She is also intrigued by the popularity of 'people pictures' given the paradox of Muslim 'iconophobia'. These questions are not new, but Kirkpatrick finds them especially compelling given the other South Asian society she is familiar with, namely plural India with its majority Hindu population, and with which she makes implicit comparisons. She is intrigued by the bare walls of houses in Bangladesh partly because of the sharp contrast they offer to the colourful decorations on the walls of homes in Hindu communities she has encountered in India.
The explanations she offers rest on psychological understandings of the universal 'impulse to image', and 'repression' of this impulse due to the'prohibition on imagery' in Islam. The two together are seen to foster voyeurism. But could there be other explanations? The article by George W. Rich and Shahid Khan on Bedford trucks in Pakistan in the 'Readings'section offers a more in-depth and grounded explanation for the intricate decoration on trucks that travel long-distance.
As art by and for 'ordinary' people, ricksha painting occupies an important space in the popular imagination and may be compared to early cinema in Europe and America, which sought to provide viewers with spectacle, thrills, news and erotic imagery. Kirkpatrick raises many lines of inquiry for future research. Rather than in its analysis, which is less persuasive, suggesting the sensibility of the museum-goer rather than theparticipant in popular culture, the strength of the work lies in its exhaustive mapping of the art and in its tracing of historical and cultural linkages in the art form. It
highlights an expressive culture that is non-commercial, responsive to social and cultural forces and as the author notes, resilient, having survived 'centralized Muslim rule' and British domination. The work will be of interest to anyone interested in South Asia's visual and public culture, it will especially be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists and scholars of South Asia interested in the visual arts. The CD-ROM format provides a valuable model for study of the popular aesthetic and one that additionally will be useful for courses on South Asian visual culture.
REFERENCES
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fabian, Johannes. 1998. Moments of freedom: Anthropology and popular culture. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia.
Herbert, Mimi. 2002. Voices of the puppet-masters: The Wayang Golek Theater of Indonesia. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
Jacob, Preminda. 1998. Media spectacles: The production and reception of Tamil cinema advertisements. Visual Anthropology 11(4): 287-322.
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