Sayed Irshad Ali
Size – 20 x 10 feet
Materials – Print on flex
Year – 2012
Location Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
From the artists website: The Bhopal gas tragedy is well known and well documented. More than 25,000 people died in this tragedy. Even today people are suffering from various diseases associated with this incident. Very less compensation has been provided to the families of those who lost their lives or to those who continue to suffer from related diseases. For twenty-five years victims have been waiting for justice. Little hope remains.
In the USA millions of gallons of oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico between April and July of 2010 damaging the fragile wetlands of Louisiana, washing ashore in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and hitting coastal industries including fishing and tourism. The Obama administration told British Petroleum to pay US$20 billion as compensation by 2012 otherwise they will take over the company.
There are two points I am raising in my artwork. In the first point I am comparing these two man-made tragedies. In one case human beings died and in the other, fish died. There were different outcomes and different value systems in play. Bhopal’s human victims are still waiting for justice, whereas the USA received compensation for dead fish and environmental damage. This artwork will raise questions such as; “how important are human lives in our country and do we really care enough?”
The second point I am raising in my art work Dow chemicals inherited the criminal by buying union carbide in 2001 at the same time didn’t take any liabilities of bhopal gas victims like clean up of the site. the result is that still Bhopal people are drinking contaminated water and 4000 people are routinely exposed to cancer and birth defect.
But this is not the only mass murderous episode in the history of Dow Chemicals…(more)