Rana Plaza
In 2015, I was studying in UTS library and came across a photographic exhibition called “Murder not Tragedy: Rana Plaza (A Photographic Exhibition)”. I had heard the news story about Rana Plaza at the time it happened, and knew that a large amount of people had died, but I was not aware of the sheer size and scale of the building collapse. Over 1,100 people were killed. 2,500 people were rescued. The provocative theme of the exhibition posed the question; If the owners of the building knew about the structural problems, doesn’t this mean it is murder? It also expanded the net of guilt to clothing brands who demand cheaper manufacturing costs of garments, and by proxy, the audience for cheap and fast fashion.
It appears that the building was unsafe for many reasons. Three or four of the floors were added illegally to the top of the building during construction. It was built on top of a pond and with shoddy construction. It was designed as a shopping centre and office space, not as an industrial space. The building was deemed unsafe with several large cracks visible when inspected on 23rd April the day before the collapse , but workers were threatened with the sack if they didn’t show up. The next day there was a power cut, and generators were turned on in some of the factories so people could keep working. It is believed these extra vibrations from the generators set off the devastating collapse.
After watching this documentary made by the NYT, I realised that some of the images I saw were by Ismail Ferdous. They have stayed with me for a long time and changed my attitude to the clothing I buy, how much I buy and have me trying to make more of my own clothing.
In an interview by Hannah Harris Green with Ismail in 2014, he recounts how he used the images in a protest in NY fashion Week.
We projected my photos from the collapse onto the building of the Lincoln Center and some stores, such as The Children’s Place, who had clothes in the Rana Plaza collapse and who still owe compensation to the victims. My photos were the voice and language of the protest to remind people about the cost of their fashion. We got great reactions from people and I feel grateful that we were able to carry the voices of the unheard victims a bit further.
Can a data visualisation of the event act in the same way? Can a visualisation remind people of the human cost of cheap clothing?
