Daastan- e-Nayandahalli – A photo exhibition by Pinky Chandran and Marwan Abubaker

Informal waste recycling in the context of urban informality is characterised by ignorance, non-recognition and social exclusion. Exclusion, as people working in waste are often stigmatised for their association with it. However, even though the informal waste economy has been compensating for the inadequate solid waste management systems in the city and country, many key players in this informal chain are neither acknowledged nor appreciated for their worth. Treated as nuisance, they are constantly pushed in the margins. This case attempts to study the recyclers of Nayandahalli and in doing so makes efforts to trace the actors involved in the informal recycling economy, and move away from binary definitions of waste of “use and throw”, and to appreciate waste as a resource.

The photo exhibition, is an outcome of the case development project of IIHS (Indian Institute of Human Settlements), under the theme “Re-Framing Urban Inclusion”.
HasiruDala’s submission was to study the scale of operations of the informal recycling units in Nayandahalli, Bangalore. The year -long project involved ethnographic methods including semi-structured interviews, radio interviews, mapping exercises and still photography.

Over 2500 photographs have been chronicled and the photo exhibition is a tribute to the recyclers of Nayandahalli. Sifting through these to select 45 was so not an easy task, however, we wanted to tell the story of the recyclers of Nayandahalli.

Daastan-e-Nayandahalli: Series 1

The exhibition has no subtitles below the photographs, but poems accompany each segment, as we want to draw attention to the invisibility and at the same time want each viewer to describe, classify and interpret each photo.

So re-imagine the informal waste economy, acknowledge of their existence, through spatial, political, social, cultural, and economic aspects. Rethink our understandings of the informal and informality – informality and marginalization in the waste sector, informality as a means of survival- without social benefits (working in and with waste), planning for informality- spaces earmarked for them, from a policy perspective, appreciating economic contribution to the municipality (from a recycling perspective).

Poems : Pinky Chandran

Number 23-Drainage
Poem 3  Far Away
Number 5- Godown area
Poem 4 Tin Sheds
Number 6-The close up of the godown
Poem 5 What is waste
Number 7-Area for collecting waste
Number 8-Waste been opened for segregation
Number 8a-Bundling
Number 9-Segregation Process
Poem 6 We go about lives
Number 10a-Segregation in process
Number 10-Segregation close up
Number 11a-Bundling
Number 11-Bundling
Number 13a-waste casetes
NUmber 13b-Waste tooth brush
Number 13c--waste CD's
Number 13d-Waste
Poem 7
Number 12-Stock of waste
Number 12a-Stock load
Poem 8 Garbage city
Number 14a-People in waste-Guy in a cap
Number 14-People in waste
Number 14c-People in waste-Salma
Number 14b-People in waste-Akmal
Number 14d-People in waste-group picture
Number 16-Bags for storing
Number 17-Waste granules
Number 18a-The load to the truck
Number 19-Carrying load to the truck
Number 20-Stacking the truck
Number 21-Loaded truck-Sidquie
Number 22a-Truck for furtehr processing
Number 22-Truck ready for furtehr process
Number 24-Pipeline
Number 25-Construction
Number 26-Building and godown
Number 27-View from railway truck
Number 28-View from flyover
Number 29-Sign board new
Poem 9 Waste and value