Karachi-born Dadi, a PhD graduate of Cornell University in New
York, has exhibited in Japan, Pakistan, Brazil, Copenhagen and Delhi. This
work comes from an exhibition called 'Tampered Surfaces', shown in Oldham
in 1995/6 to showcase contemporary visual art from South Asia.
It dates from a time when Dadi was exploring images of Pakistan through filming
on the streets of Karachi during his frequent visits home whilst living in
America. He illuminates an industrial world in which there is no solace in
past hope, where Darwinian principles make even the fittest either have to
constantly alter or die.
There
is little sentiment in industry. As Darwin said about natural selection, only
the fittest survive.
Oldham was once at the centre of the world cotton industry. India, Pakistan
and Bangladesh later became important cotton producing countries. The decline
in the cotton industry, partly due to the growth in demand for artificial
fibres, hit Oldham and the cotton industry worldwide, causing widespread unemployment.
An over-reliance on one industry or skill is rarely sustainable.
Towering mill buildings and a shared heritage of memories are the major legacies
of this industry.
Once
upon a time there was a time: Wake before five, walk to the mill, work from
five in the morning to eight or nine at night. Not only men and women, but girls
and boys of six years and upwards, made to work for fourteen, fifteen, sixteen
hours a day, day after day, three hundred and thirteen days in every year.
Working in an average heat of eighty two degrees… eighty two degrees, hotter
than ever it is on the hottest summer day.
Locked in - locked in - all day, in the noise and the heat. Not Allowed to send
out for a cool drink of water. Dinner Time : let out for forty-five minutes,
dinner: a watery gruel with oat cake broken into it, salt, sometimes coloured
with a little milk, plus a few potatoes, and a bit of bacon or fat.
Then back to work. Not Allowed to open even one window, not one breath of fresh
air to float between you and the infections in the air. An evil atmosphere:
the foul stink of the gas mingling with the steam and the dust, and the fuz
- the cotton floating in the air - and this you must breathe in and breathe
out, breathe in and breathe out, whilst you work the machines, for fourteen,
fifteen, sixteen hours a day, day after day, three hundred and thirteen days
in every year, in an average heat of eighty two degrees.
No time for relaxation; no time for tender talk; no time for play. No time for
love. No time for yourself until the day's end, when you would be exhausted.
Could you do anything then, other than sleep? And you wake in the morning and
it all begins again. Strong men and women made old and weak before their time,
past all work by the age of forty - if they lived that long, because in hells
such as these, children were made decrepit and deformed, and thousands upon
thousands of them died before the age of sweet sixteen, in the cotton mills
of towns like Oldham.
Once upon a time there was a time, when people believed other people could be
treated in this way, treated not as people, but as brutes, children, mothers,
fathers, wives, husbands, sweethearts, compelled to live a life like this, trained
from the age of six, to believe that this was the way things should be, brutalised
by those who made millions from suffering and misery.
Yet incredibly, there were those who said "NO" Those who knew despite
their training and brutalisation that they were not brutes, that the conditions
imposed upon them were brutalising but that they themselves were not brutes,
were more human than those who were content to believe they were not. They were
determined to live as human beings to fight for working conditions and living
conditions that were fit for their children and themselves, that were fit for
human beings. And they met together And organised and planned together Took
action together. And together they formed a movement that would change their
world. And together they danced on the Pennine tops as the sun was setting,
danced in celebration of who they really were, danced as the sun went down on
an old world, danced to a new world dawning.
That was all Once upon a time a long time ago. But do you know what those who
were prepared to treat people as brutes did? They took a global view, And went
to other countries far away, built their mills and their mines and their factories
in lands where the people could still be treated as brutes. And not Once upon
a time, not a long time ago, but today, right now, there are: men and women,
and girls and boys from six years and upwards, who are made to work for fourteen,
fifteen, sixteen hours a day, day after day, three hundred and thirteen days
in every year. Working in an average heat of eighty two degrees - eighty two
degrees, hotter than ever it is on the hottest summer day.
Locked in, locked in, all day, in the noise and heat. Not allowed to send out
for a cool drink of water.
What do you think about that my friend?
)
