Visual Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2, October 2005

 Review: Kirkpatrick, Joanna. Transports of delight. The ricksha arts of Bangladesh. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2003. CD-ROM for Windows/PC Computers.

Review by Lakshmi Srinivas, Wellesley College

Joanna Kirkpatrick first began anthropological fieldwork in Bangladesh in 1976 following fieldwork in India in the mid-1960s. It was when she was teaching anthropology at Rajshahi University and on a fellowship to to study educated working women that she became fascinated with the brightly-coloured rickshas which ferry 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 the popular arts frequently become the subject of scholarly study. Johannes Fabian, for example, has commented on his interest in popular culture in Shaba in Zaire which developed 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 trips between 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’, with four 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 while introducing 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 a global databank – kangaroos, Saddam Hussein, Big Ben and the names of western rock bands – contribute to an eclectic mix. There is free amalgamation of form and style 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 the ways 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, for instance, how colours and themes are chosen. [This is wrong: I gave details on how colors and themes were selected. JK] 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? [I gave data on this question too. JK] 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. An ethnographic perspective incorporating the voices of the artists would have thrown light on the production of ricksha art and its producers. [I discussed in detail why it was difficult to get artists to talk about their pictures, choices, and the “meaning” to them of the work. JK]

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 the participant 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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Contemporary South Asia. Forthcoming in Volume 14, no. 2 , 2005. By, Peter J. Bertocci , Department of Sociology/Anthropology, Oakland University, Mich.   

Review: Kirkpatrick, Joanna . Transports of Delight: The Ricksha Arts of Bangladesh (CD-ROM). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.    ISBN 0-253-34148-3

 Rickshas are emblematically associated with misery everywhere in South Asia, the last resort of desperately poor men in search of work, and so it is perhaps surprising that they should be the site of a vibrant and dynamic outpouring of artistic expression.  As a regular user of rickshas when in Bangladesh, I am continually amazed by the vivid drawings, spectacular colors, and often mysterious subjects that decorate these laboriously driven transport vehicles, and I have long thought that ricksha art would be worthy of serious scholarly attention.   It is thus a pleasure to celebrate the appearance of Joanna Kirkpatrick's lovingly and meticulously prepared CD-ROM. 

 This is the sole extensive study of Bangladeshi ricksha art I know of, and it belongs in the library of anyone with a teaching and/or research interest in the indigenous, subaltern arts of South Asia.  Ricksha art is briefly treated in Henry Glassie's Art and Life in Bangladesh (Indiana, 1997), and Kyoshi Tsuzuki (ed., Traffic Art,

Kyoto: Kyoto Shoin International Company Ltd., 1990) has compiled a visually stunning collection of reproductions, but with little explanatory or analytical narrative.  Neither of these references comes near the depth and breadth of coverage and comprehension of Kirkpatrick's work on this subject.  

"Ricksha arts," Kirkpatrick tells us in her introduction, "are made to be seen 'at a glance,'" as one is hurtled jarringly through often frightful traffic. Their message must be boldly conveyed and speak directly to some source of recognition rooted in, she argues, "male desire in its major forms: for sex, competitive power and wealth," but also "for one's village home, for the blessings of religious devotion," and, some times, for solidarity with others in social and political struggle.  But these subjects hardly exhaust the range of what ricksha art displays.  A common theme depicts animals acting out the dreams, even "satirize the foibles of men, or, perhaps, 'say the unsayable' politically" (Introduction).  Scenes from and stars of the movies -- another medium for the daydreams of desire of the deprived and projections of power by the powerless -- are an endless source of ricksha decoration, both these media sharing space, as it were, as the art par excellence of "ordinary people."

 The CD-ROM is divided into four parts.  One is enticed into the introduction with the dreamily lush, background intonations of a popular Bangladeshi ballad extolling the expressive powers of the eye -- bara sundar, bara sundar, duti chok tomar -- how lovely, how beautiful are your (two) eyes -- the eye as "seat of desire."  The second segment, beginning with helpful navigation instructions, the CD-ROM's visual heart, contains a series of thematic files with a broad range of ricksha art images, each further divided in subsections, one for discussion, one a "gallery."   There follows a history of rickshas and their art, along with a sampling of its varied regional styles.  Especially valuable are extended, filmed interviews with artists themselves, in their homes and workshops, giving real insight into their conceptions of what they are doing and why.  Thus, "raw interview data" are accessible for other scholars to use, and making these visual and oral documents available is one of the major contributions of this work.  The third section moves the viewer on visual journeys through Dhaka and the countryside.  The aim, here, I think, is to contextualize ricksha art by providing the viewer with a direct, audio-visual experience of what it is like to be on the streets of Dhaka and the country lanes on which rickshas also ply.  On some of these trips, the viewer is accompanied by the songs of Lalon Fakir, the famous Bangladeshi Baul composer.  On others one hears only street sounds, adding to the "virtual" experience of Bangladesh that this segment is intended to provide.  In three of her own essays in the last section, Kirkpatrick meditates on her field work, draws provocatively from Kenneth Burke in search of possibly deeper meaning in ricksha art, and compares its animal motifs with those found in other world cultures.  She also includes, for comparative purposes, a guest paper on Bedford truck art in Pakistan by George W. Rich and Shahidul Khan.  An extensive bibliography winds up the production.  

        Ricksha art received national public recognition at a heavily attended 1999 gallery showing of the work of over eighty painters, at the Alliance Française in Dhaka.  Joanna Kirkpatrick's CD-ROM ought to stimulate appreciative awareness of this endlessly evocative art from among scholars of indigenous and subaltern art as well.

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