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 

    The piece overtly critiques how the “holiday” or “tourist moment” for Western visitors is underwritten by labour and inequality elsewhere. The cheerful duo, umbrella and selfie in hand, obliviously enjoying themselves, are reliant on a child’s back (literally) for mobility. The imagery forces us to ask: what economic mechanisms make that leisure possible? What hierarchies and global flows enable that rickshaw ride? The child’s monochrome treatment emphasises invisibility and devaluation of the worker. Sources note that “a pair of corpulent tourists sits in a rickshaw taking photographs while the tiny boy attempts to pull them along.