According to local legend, shipwrecking activities
at Chittagong Beach, Bangladesh, began after a
ship ran aground in the early 1960s. Since then, it’s
become one of the biggest shipwrecking centres
in the world, a resting place for the massive steel
husks of international commercial trade.
Gudzowaty’s photographs show ships being
disassembled largely by hand, producing a stunning
juxtaposition of vulnerable human beings versus
the hulking, rusting ghosts of global industry.
Gudzowaty documents the plight of the workers,
among the poorest of the poor in Bangladesh
– a resource-poor nation whose economy needs
such industry. He traces efforts across the labour
chain, from porters who tote massive pieces of
metal on their backs to chanters who coordinate
hauling using collective muscle power. “The world
needs to somehow get rid of these dying ships,”
Gudzowaty writes, “even by unloading this
problem on the shoulders of the Chittagong
workers.”