LIZA SEMLER

A Life of Work

A Life of Work tells the story of Abul Hashem, an elder who cleans trash from Dhanmondi Lake in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Each day, he moves across the water in a large canoe-like boat, pulling trash from the lake by hand. Work that would be physically demanding at any age, and more so for a man well into his later years.

Hashem’s days on the lake are a quiet, largely unnoticed labor, the kind of work that keeps a public space clean for everyone else, while the person doing it goes unseen.

This project is a portrait of that labor: what it costs a body to do this work late in life, and what it means that survival, for Hashem, runs through both the lake and his family.