Sumedha Garg shares her latest work under lockdown as part of OtherworldArt, a long term art project in Kapashera. The urban village is home to over 300,000 labour migrants working mostly in garment manufacturing.
Kapas (cotton) is entangled with the destiny of Kapashera. From being an agrarian village just 3 decades ago, Kapashera today is integral to the planetary play of cotton. Processed cotton arrives here from China only to be spun and stitched into garments that then leave for Western shores. Capital is expanded, rented, and exchanged in the process.
“The ongoing crisis unleashed by the COVID 19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown has brought the world to a grinding halt. The most susceptible to this are the urban migrant communities like the one we are working with in Kapashera. After we were forced to close our art studio due to the lockdown, we decided continue our collaboration with the Seven Sisters women’s collective in Kapashera under the COVID lockdown. The collaboration, which is conducted over the phone and over Whatsapp supports the women to deal with the unspoken atrocities taking place under the lockdown. The project is intended to serve as a visual archive of the lockdown and how migrant communities are organizing collectively in relation to them.
Above are some of the art pieces they produced over the last weeks under the lockdown. Post the lockdown, we are planning to put these pieces as a collective tapestry to serve as an archive of the unspoken violence and apathy that the labour migrants faced under the unprecedented COVID lockdown.”
The project is supported by KHOJ Studios through socially engaged projects.
➡️ studiootherworlds.com / @otherworlds.art to find out more.
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