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On my recent trip to India (Trichy & Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu), I was *fascinated* by the trucks, lorries and buses on the roads. Going through my notes, I find myself wanting to look them up. The brand that stood out the most for me was Ashok Leyland: https://t.co/FoP4hvZkmL https://t.co/5sXM09aiPb
There is clearly a language here of patterns, colors, ideas, motifs. I'm obviously not the first person to think "wow these trucks are fascinating" – there's a whole documentary about it! @hornpleasedoc and a picture book by the same name https://t.co/UCvfRZLYQT https://t.co/MwThl1ylrG
More pics by @daneckstein if you know what you're looking at, you can discern a lot of information about the lorries and their drivers. The names of the owner(s), their specific religious denomination, where they're from, even social and political beliefs https://t.co/AUYdOM1gSI
(From Wikipedia) I find that even the stock Ashok Leyland trucks somehow have a lot of personality to them, even before all the paint and frills I would love to hear from the designers who made them, and I'd be curious to hear what truckers elsewhere in the world think of them https://t.co/MaM8f7SDwj
And – of course! – if you go to different parts of India, you'll find that the different regions have different styles of truck art! I was only in TN. Here are some pics from trucks elsewhere in the country – Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and... rainbow fans? https://t.co/Egy4ItIOJj
A wild Bezos appeared! https://t.co/HSE79uPUZK
Apparently things get even wilder next door in Pakistan https://t.co/1JaohJOTJ5
as a backdrop for fashion (Fahad Hussayn, 2012) https://t.co/9d8kX9nRGC
Of course the Japanese have a whole subculture devoted to their own cyberpunk version of this – Dekotora ("deco-truck") trucks An aesthetic goal for my future work: to figure out an natural, organic, intermediate step between this and the desi stuff https://t.co/weTNDyH64U
Do Americans have an equivalent? I'm googling "american truck decorations, american truck show", "beautiful big rig", this is what I got – a lot of macho steel and chrome https://t.co/f59DbO1oJI
googling "european truck show" now https://t.co/IJfENP5vFU
Suddenly got reminded of Filipino Jeepneys!! I saw these IRL when I visited Cebu in 2015. Again, it might look like indescipherable chaos to outsiders, but if you look closely + start to observe the patterns, there's a whole language here. Similar to yet distinct from Desi trucks https://t.co/LrbyFt55W5
Over to Thailand. I wonder what's the story with all the Michelin men toys/figures...? https://t.co/3YzEJbR7py
buses in Haiti same same but different football is a bigger deal here https://t.co/pcTlo7aNE2
good point from @the_nickolias – if you want to look for art on vehicles in the USA, you should probably look at food trucks. These are pretty neat! https://t.co/TstcEgmtRt
Kenyan matatus! https://t.co/zea1VW1g5T
dekotora https://t.co/sptkXfAqcP
@visakanv Lots of tuk tuks in Thailand have fun LED lighting and some crazy sound systems, having trouble finding photos though https://t.co/3V3PwbsUHk
@visakanv More: https://t.co/detpXZ4JQ0 I think the Michelin figures are given out as promos when you get tires changed