Participating Artists Press Agency
“Migrationpapa”
Monday 17th of March 2025 – page 1
On a Monday morning in November 2010, six photographers in five cities around the world take their cameras to urban neighbourhoods where newcomers arrive. The photos flow into the PAPA website like a wave moving around the world. First from Bangladesh, five hours later from Rotterdam and Lagos – cities in the same time zone. Detroit and São Paulo complete the group another seven hours later. From the first week the photos and captions were projected on the windows of the cultural centre at the entrance to the neighbourhood in Rotterdam. The same will happen in other cities. In this way the inhabitants of the various newcomers neighbourhoods not only get a fresh perspective on their own lives but they also get to see how newcomers in other cities live. Migrationpapa is a PAPA project for Kosmopolis Rotterdam with the generous support of Hivos
Saturday 6th of November 2010
Lagos -
A board with winning numbers for daily lotteries, known as Baba Ijebu, at Obalende. Although there are rarely many winners, this form of gambling is rampant in Obalende, especially among…
Andrew Esiebo –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
A rickshaw walla with his baby girl. While it is difficult to make ends meet with what one earns pulling a rickshaw. Once children are born, it becomes more difficult…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
A narrow wooden stairway takes people to the upper floor of the two storied accommodation in Sadek City Model Town. The rooms do not have windows so the upper rooms…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
Looking into the sun from the rickshaw garage. Rickshaws get regularly ‘stolen’ and the garage is notified. Once they pay the protection money, they are told where they can pick…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
Many of the inhabitants of Sadek City Model Town live in narrowly packed lines of rooms made of bamboo. They can get water from nearby tubewells and have electricity for…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Lagos -
With a big umbrella, the cheapest phone of less than 10 dollars many new comers make their daily living through the Mobile Telephone booth popularly known as Payphone that dots…
Andrew Esiebo –
Migrationpapa
Lagos -
This young man runs a phone battery recharging service. There is the saying ‘every disappointment can be a blessing’. This certainly applies to the battery recharging services dotted across the…
Andrew Esiebo –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
The precision required in placing the fragile clay pots is difficult to gauge. Once each circle of pots is in position, the men tap the pots to hear for any…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
Children need to become productive at a very early age and take on many adult roles. Every member of the family, beyond a certain age has to work to keep…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
Rickshaw wallas are very proud of their rickshaws and most rickshaws are brightly decorated. But with times getting more difficult, there are fewer adornments, and hand painted decorations are being…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
Kali is considered the goddess of time and change. Although sometimes presented as dark and violent, her earliest incarnation as a figure of annihilation still has some influence. Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Lagos -
Shehu Saleh, 30 years arrived a cobbler arrived Lagos from Katsina ten years ago on invitation of his elder brother who is a business man in Lagos. He came to…
Andrew Esiebo –
Migrationpapa
Rotterdam -
Young Mr. Bhoendie has been working here for eleven years now. His father and mother bought this little restaurant fifteen years ago. His mother cooks Surinamese, Hindu, Chinese, Carribean and…
Nies Medema –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
The owners of the rickshaw garage are often themselves former rickshaw pullers. These owners are migrants too. Rickshaws often get stolen. They are also taken away by local protection rackets…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Lagos -
A man moving bag of rice as kegs of palm oil waits buyers across the country and beyond at at the Iddo terminus market. The market is popular for transtional…
Andrew Esiebo –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
This is the man around whom I will be building my story. He lives on the upper floor of the wooden huts in Sadek City Model Town.…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
TThe shop used to be in nearby Dhanmondi, a more upmarket location. They didn’t need to pay rent for the roadside stall, but had to bribe the police 100 Taka…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Lagos -
A mobile herbal medicine products at Obalende, Lagos- a migrant community area of Lagos. For those who cannot afford going to the orthodox medical care herbal medince is fast becoming…
Andrew Esiebo –
Migrationpapa
Lagos -
One of the Hausa new comers at Obalende – Lagos filling jerrycans with water from a private owned borehole to supply around Lagos. Though, Lagos is surrounded by oceans, seas…
Andrew Esiebo –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
A cow decides to take a leisurely walk along the road. Other traffic simply lets it be, and life goes on as normal.…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
Kadar moton ghumai literally translates to ‘sleeping like sand’. It is generally used for small children who drape themselves around their mother, sleeping as if the world didn’t exist. These…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
As children we used to talk about Italian Saloons (‘It’ is a brick in Bangla, so these were saloons where you sat on roadside bricks). We also had Mongolian Saloons…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa
Dhaka -
Most male migrants who come into from villages have skills like farming and fishing, which are not useful in the city. They initially work as rickshaw drivers or labourers. Rickshaw…
Shahidul Alam –
Migrationpapa