Brick Yard

I started photographic recordings of manual labor workers in shipyards, textile factories and steel mills in Bangladesh and India. This project on brickyard, taken in the end of 2012 in Bangladesh, is one of my personal works. This nation of rapid economic growth has booming construction rush and faces massive domestic migration from rural areas to the capital Dacca. That puts all brickyards on full swing operation in order to meet the high demands of bricks as the fundamental construction material. In Ashulia district, suburb of Dacca, seasonal workers in residence operate throughout the year except monsoon season. Unbelievably, all the production is done by sheer force of workers without any heavy equipment. It is a sight coming from almost pre-industrial era to the eyes of 21st century modern day Japan. While the scene is as much to show a pure definition of physical labor, it also represents the joy and pain of producing bricks that are the fruits of the labor. The more I see them through the finder, the more the proposition of “work” reels with question in my mind.