Moving still: Bicycles in Ranchhod Oza’s photographs of 1950s Stone Town (Zanzibar)

Abstract

Stone Town’s busy streets in the 1950s became a set for photographer Ranchhod Oza, proprietor of Capital Art Studio (1930–83). I was aesthetically drawn to the numerous bicycles portrayed in these Zanzibari images, just as Oza had been at an earlier time and place. I am less interested in reading the subject of bicycles as simply a sign of Zanzibari modernity, an accoutrement that projects a fantasy of advancement via technological things. Instead, I focus on their ability to reflect various material aspects of daily life in Stone Town. Some bicycles carry people, others transport things, while still others appear as stage props, leaning up against walls while waiting (im)patiently for their owners to return. Yet in all these Oza images, they are moving still, ready to reach another chosen destination. What does the content of bicycles say about Oza’s photographic style? Can these bicycles potentially speak to Zanzibar’s placeness as a cosmopolitan Indian Ocean port city?