When most people think of the Arabian peninsula, they think of the opulent man-made islands of Dubai and that city's sparking, futuristic towers, or the World Cup stadiums rising from the desert in Qatar. But with his series Crossings, Arko Datto shifts the attention to the millions of migrant workers from throughout Asia who are building these structures.
Datto used Google Maps and Google Earth to capture the vast highways, sprawling landscapes, and grand projects that laborers have built under conditions that border on slavery.
Though it might seem more obvious to make portraits of workers, Datto finds the results of their labor equally ominous. The somewhat abstract aerial images highlight the extent of their contributions---and the exploitation so integral to the region's growth. It's also a metaphor---Datto didn't photograph the workers individually or document their living conditions because they are essentially unseen by the society so thoroughly reliant upon them.
"The work deals with the issue in a fairly abstract/tangential way," Datto says. "The total lack of human presence in the images is symbolic of the anonymity, facelessness, and lack of representation that the migrant workers suffer."
Datto grew interested in the issue during his frequent travels from his native India to Europe; he's had 20 layovers in various airports in the Middle East over the past 14 years. "I started getting fascinated with the throng of migrant workers you would see huddled in groups in different parts of the airport, waiting for a trip back home," he says.
Migrant workers from India, Nepal and throughout Southeast Asia get construction jobs through recruiters who lure them with promises of prosperity. Once there, many workers find themselves essentially held hostage by employers who hold their passports and pay for months. An investigation by the Guardian found that migrant workers building the stadiums and other infrastructures for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar are essentially slaves. Another report found Nepalese working on World Cup projects died at the rate of one person every two days last year. Advocates for these workers say 62 people will die for each game of the World Cup---nearly 4,000 deaths in all.
Still, little has changed as worldwide awareness of the problem mounts. Datto is not deterred and continues to make work on migrant issues. "I want to show to the world a bitter truth that is at the crossroads of capitalism and racism," Datto says.
