a transdisciplinary project is about the inquiry into body, labour, performance, identity, embodiment, and pleasure, expanding the spatial and temporal dimensions of the Bodied Labour; it is about the exploration of ‘slits,’ a metaphorical space traced by the body between work and its apparatus and within its sensual transition; it is about an act of seeing, the gaze.
The project interrogates how societal perspectives shape the gaze on bodies and questions the nature of inquiries made within these slits. The exploration underscores the sensual nature of this discourse, challenging preconceived notions about labour, bodies, and the spaces they inhabit
The ephemeral construction site has become an indefinite sight in Pune city and its suburbs, a city of development and madness of majboori. The project aims to scratch the surface of the planning of cities, the dawn of a new economy in India and Pune by examining the burgeoning population of migrated construction labourers, the intricate tapestry of their lives, work and site, discipline and desires.
The everyday existence of construction (labourer) bodies working on site that conform and invade the capitalist template has stayed implicit to the idea of the project.
It looks at the labour body historically and through ethnographic methodology, conducting oral history and observations to inform the embodiment of the identities it performs within and outside the discipline represented in the dominant template of the PWD structure and real estate market, producing a flat narrative favoured for commodification and class reinforcement.
The understanding of labour extends from the ‘social body’ to body politic to the phenomenological interpretations the body experiences every day. This experience is ephemeral and contributes to the construction of sensual experiences, highlighting the intersections between work, discipline and pleasure embodied through ambiguity within the construction and body performance on site.
The project attempts to evolve from this narrative underpinning the body as a social phenomenon and brings to the forefront the embodiment of pleasure and desires of the flesh, a phenomenological inquiry into the body as a site of production, reproducing sensuality through transgression and submission.