Through total lack of human images.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Beneath the glitzy, shimmering facade of opulent, cutting edge buildings and triumphs of engineering, an invisible population toils away in virtual slavery in order to sate the Middle East’s ravenous appetite for architectural excellence.
In his series “Crossings,” Indian-based photographer Arko Datto poignantly hones in on the millions of migrant workers from Asia who are building these structures, usually under reprehensible conditions.
However, instead of taking portraits of the workers themselves, or exploring the state of their deplorable, filthy living conditions in which many become sick, Datto utilized Google Maps and Google Earth to contextualize their plight with images of the “vast highways, sprawling landscapes, and grand projects” that laborers have slaved over, according to Wired.
It’s a metaphor that Datto finds just as ominous as any portraits of the workers themselves or the immediate conditions they work and live in; the workers are essentially invisible to a society that is inherently reliant on them.
“The work deals with the issue in a fairly abstract/tangential way,” Datto told Wired. “The total lack of human presence in the images is symbolic of the anonymity, facelessness, and lack of representation that the migrant workers suffer.”
Datto said he’s had 20 layovers in various airports in the Middle East over the past 14 years, and grew interested in the plight of migrant workers while travelling between his native India and Europe.
“I started getting fascinated with the throng of migrant workers you would see huddled in groups in different parts of the airport, waiting for a trip back home,” he continued.
Migrant laborers from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and throughout South Asia are often wrangled into construction jobs with promises of prosperity and the notion that they will be able to send money home to their families.
Upon their arrival, many workers have their passports seized, rendering them powerless to escape their employers who can then effectively hold them hostage without any pay for months. Some laborers have even reported being denied access to water amidst the searing desert heat in order to weaken their resolve to run away — a dangerous, anti-humanitarian practice, to say the least.
The Guardian has launched several investigations into the dire straits of migrant workers tasked with completing a slew of exorbitant stadiums before the 2022 World Cup — which itself is thought to have been won with corrupt bribes — and their findings have been staggering.
“We were working on an empty stomach for 24 hours; 12 hours’ work and then no food all night,” said Ram Kumar Mahara, 27. “When I complained, my manager assaulted me, kicked me out of the labor camp I lived in and refused to pay me anything. I had to beg for food from other workers.”
One report found Nepalese working on World Cup projects died at the rate of one person every two days last year. Another exposé cited Play Fair Qatar, which calculated “more than 62 workers will die for each game played during the 2022 tournament.”
While the world has yet to truly notice the tragedy of migrant workers who are flagrantly abused in the Middle East, Datto continues to advocate migrant issues, undeterred by the indifference of the public consciousness at large.
“I want to show to the world a bitter truth that is at the crossroads of capitalism and racism,” he emphasized.