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City [In] Visible 2009

City [In] Visible was an art project that generated dialogue and narratives in collaboration with local communities in Khirkee about the lived realities of the migrant working class in Delhi's shifting urban landscape and the relationship between labour and the metropolitan space.

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City [In] Visible II was a community research project by Sreejata Roy and Mrityunjay Chatterjee, that attempted to evaluate the way space has been transformed in Khirkee Village, with regard to labour migration and architecture between 2008 and 2009.

“Like millions of similar tiny and apparently inconsequential sites all over the world, in terms of economic struggle and subsistence, Khirkee Village is continually manipulated by global market forces as well as the unyielding pressures of urban ‘development’.”

To identify the presence of these forces, Sreejata Roy and Mrityunjay Chatterjee observed events directly influencing this particular locality. For instance, due to sealing of ‘illegal’ shops and showrooms all over Delhi by the municipal corporation, many workshops in Khirkee had to relocate or shut down entirely, without any provision being made for those who work there. A second strand of the research examined and documented the architectural changes that took place in Khirkee between 2008 and 2009, as the site continued to respond and adapt in unique ways to the various tensions summarised above.

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