Poster Dwelling for Land and Economy has been developed in relation to issues suggested by the spaces and social activity related to the Palika Bazaar market and the economic zoning system and the green city plan for Delhi.
There are currently a number of concrete domes visible from within the park at Connaught Place. Learning Site will make a 1:1 scale papier mache dome that mirrors the form of one of the existing domes. The domes connect Palika Bazaar to the natural environment of the park by providing air and light. The papier mache dome of the Poster Dwelling will connect the marketplace to broader themes of ecology, markets, food supply and the economy of land.

The Poster Dwelling will be constructed from recycled paper from Delhi’s ‘office zone’, and its surface will be covered with images and texts that explore the tension between work, land and economy, and the role of markets in social and cultural organization.

The orthodox economics that prevails in ‘Market Economies’ suggests that all social and cultural relations are the result of market forces. Conversely, historians, anthropologists and sociologists suggest that markets are, in fact, deeply embedded in cultural practices, social conventions and local traditions. Often, ‘real markets’ rub shoulders with an ‘ideology of Markets’. Real markets operate within the social, cultural and legal constraints of particular localities and customs. But increasingly they co-exist with ‘conceptual’ Markets. In Special Economic Zones for example, local traditions, customs and laws are suspended. In their place, the ‘society’, ‘culture’ and ‘law’ of ‘The Market’ reigns. Between ‘real markets’ and the ‘ideology of the Market’ lie complex issues of labor, access to land and knowledge, ecology, politics and power. The surface of Poster Dwelling explores these interrelations and their relevance
for the environment.

The area around the dome will be planted with edible plants mirroring the decorative flower-beds that surround the concrete dome on which it is modeled. Here Learning Site will work with Delhi-based Navdanya organization to (re)circulate public knowledge about soil, compost, seeds and plants and their use in new approaches to land, ecology and economy.

A publication – Learning Book #003, Land, Market and Economy – will examine the issues raised by the project.