Hello, my name is Vikram Divecha. I have been living and working in the United Arab Emirates for many years now. My practice often sees me negotiating with urban systems and working with the everyday processes that surround us, such as municipal gardening, demolition and sanitation.
For this art, I collaborated with five workers: Assainar, Khayyum, Rafique, Altaf and Afzal. Employed by the city authorities, their job is to keep the streets clean. Like many migrant workers, their labour, which is essential to the functioning of our cities, often remains unacknowledged.
Spread across the wall are six colour photographs and a street map. The photographs document the workers sweeping the streets. In 2016 I spent three months walking individually with each worker. During this time, I got to know them, their work and dynamics of the area. They worked in Al Shuweiheen, Sharjah, in a busy residential neighbourhood lined with shops and restaurants. Located in this area is also the Sharjah Art Museum, a high-walled building.
Each worker is dressed in green, carrying a green bag to pick up refuse. They swept alone, following a specific route through narrow streets and by-lanes, circulating their designated area three to four times, from early morning until lunch. The litter was mostly paper cups, cans, bottles, wrappers, cigarettes, receipts, dust and other waste. The translucent bags were archives of the neighbourhood’s consumption habits.
All of these workers were from India, part of a large South Asian workforce. Most lived away from their families. We all spoke a common language – Hindi – and exchanged a lot about our lives during our walks and when we all gathered at a cafeteria. I was made aware of a map on which their routes were plotted. After many discussions, one morning we decided to change the maps so they now ended outside the museum’s entrance. This turned into a daily performance.
After each worker finished a cycle, he would deposit a bag of refuse on the sidewalk in front of the museum. A row of about 25 green bags would accumulate until 2 pm before being cleared by the garbage truck. You can see a photograph of the bags nestled together between the museum’s wall and the grey street. This line of green trash bags was remade every day for a few months.
Near the centre of the display is the new route map. Each different coloured lines belongs to a different worker’s route. Arrows along the lines indicate the direction of the routes, which meet at the museum. This art draws attention to what we overlook. In presenting trash, the workers claimed their labour as a creation of beauty. Waste also became a mediator, initiating encounters between the neighbourhood, the museum, and the workers.
Still today, Afzal recounts the museum staff pushing the trash bags away from the entrance. But we would bring them back. Pedestrians paused and enquired. Shopkeepers spun their own theories. Some stories were recounted to me. Some stories, perhaps, still reside in the neighbourhood.