BANKSY // Fat Tourist and Rickshaw, 2009

  • Banksy’s 2009 Fat Tourist and Rickshaw critiques Western tourism and exploitation.
    Banksy, Rickshaw, 2009.
    Oil on canvas, 336 × 274 cm. Unique.
    © Banksy.
    In Rickshaw, 2009, Banksy delivers one of his most cutting indictments of Western privilege. Rendered in his signature stencil technique, the work depicts a smiling tourist couple taking a selfie as they sit in a rickshaw pulled by a barefoot child. Their pink-toned skin, sun umbrella, and carefree demeanour are rendered in full colour, in stark contrast to the monochrome figure of the boy who struggles to drag them. 
     
    As with much of Banksy’s politically engaged practice, Rickshaw uses satire to expose real-world complicity. It suggests that even the most benign forms of tourism can rest on invisible systems of exploitation, particularly in post-colonial or economically vulnerable regions. The work interrogates the ethics of consumption, travel, and how joy and suffering are unevenly distributed in a globalised world. 
     
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  • "Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own.”

    - Banksy 

    First appearing in 2009, Rickshaw captures Banksy’s unflinching critique of global inequality and Western privilege. The work shows a smiling tourist couple, painted in colour as they pose for a selfie under a sun umbrella, being pulled in a rickshaw by a barefoot child rendered in monochrome. The jarring contrast between leisure and labour exposes the hidden exploitation behind seemingly innocent acts of tourism.
     Through stark irony, Banksy forces viewers to confront how comfort and pleasure in one part of the world often rely on suffering and deprivation elsewhere. Rickshaw continues his tradition of using humour as a weapon to reveal uncomfortable truths about class, privilege, and complicity in systemic inequality.