Fursat ki Fizayen is a reclamation of space, rights and aspirations, bringing forth multiple narratives around women’s leisure in the visible public domain, and encouraging women’s participation in public space.

Leisure experiences for women in the city are often determined by the intersection of gender with other identities producing exclusion in complex ways. It is seen when women spend their leisure time, they construct their identities using space to express themselves and interact with others. Fursat ki Fizayen, explored this dialectical relationship between leisure and space by engaging young, single, working women to reflect on how they think and construct their own images in the public domain. Participatory place-making and image-making being powerful tools for social empowerment were used to foster ownership and belongingness for their created environments. Stories of daily negotiations and contestations were curated by spatial design practitioners Divya and Rwitee, to understand the lived experiences and spatial realities of these young women who access the site of power – the public domain – while exploring and reclaiming spaces for leisure in their own unique ways. Aspects of time, space and nature of leisure were discussed to co-design and co-produce leisure spaces with the women. Such stories could be used as means to understand and question the ways in which the world affects women at leisure.

*This page is available as a downloadable accessibility document.