Diorama of a radiating body

Diorama of a Radiating body

2023

Woodcut print on fabric, cement, bamboo

sand and fabric

When a diorama acts as a lens, it allows the
onlooker to see both itself and the environment of the space from the lens of frozen body.
Diorama from the gaze of a freezing body.
Diorama made of Bamboo, cement, print, sand and fabric.

A diorama on the rooftop of my village, this structure is an outcome of personal encounter and interaction with the friend and villagers who I met in Bombay who were working as construction worker. My idea was to create a space to begin dialogue with my villagers on the memory experience, and knowledge as immigrant workers. Construction site and politics allows a certain type of body movement and interaction to the worker, which controls and exposes the body to toxicity of materials, chemicals, actions and sun light, absorbing these in mundane life body is changing minutely. That change is undetected with our unskilled bare eyes. But environment has already been researched which have tragic impact on body, how body is observing the radiation of sun and being surrounded with industrial material body of manual labourer is changing or evolving to different trajectory. That ambience is within various sight and structure which can been seen and experienced by those who works at construction site. Those who dwell in such spaces have become a host of radiation, who radiate on the site and changing dynamic.

This installation is part of "The Radiating Body" project, which I developed during my residency at Camp Studio Bombay. I explored the idea of immigrant labor identity while visiting construction sites and interacting with my friends and fellow villagers who were working in Bombay. I developed an identity from a subjective perspective during these interactions.

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One of the methods of interaction involved the exchange of photographs. He would send me photographs of the cityscape and construction sites, and I would study and analyze his perspective. For example, in photographs like the flight view, most of them depicted scenes from and around construction sites, such as aerial views, scaffolding between a city and a construction site, and blurred buildings. While observing these collected photographs from my friend, I developed a diorama from a subjective point of view.

I have been gathering information from a friend who works at a construction site, including details about the workspace and the views they encounter, information about the amount of time they spend at the site, and information about the various tools that can be used for various tasks. Additionally, I've been collecting information about scaffolding, walls, health, and the environment.

Some images from the process, how I am transferring the photograph image onto wood block, and using the traditional method of

Printmaking to mass-produce an image, which I am printing on fabric to create a back drop or background screen.

Created a diorama from the lens of radiating body who has been frozen by the elite caste discourse, which I approached while taking reference of photographs they take and story they tell, where tool is an Organ and an exoskeleton, where birds are covered with cement, and scaffold that becomes resting space, which creates boundary between construction site and cityscape.

Created this interactive space on the rooftop of a building in my village, where it became a space story sharing and remembrance for the people who immigrates to city for work.