Hiteshree Ðas
    AboUt

HUM SAB EK


An immersive exhibition inspired by the actions of the Self Employed Women’s Association, comprising 3 million women working in the informal sector in India. What began as a traditional research project on the impact of the pandemic on the lives of the working poor through surveys of 1000 poor households and 30 hours of oral histories, evolved into a multi- media exhibition created by an interdisciplinary team of graduate students from across Harvard.


How might we distill multilingual oral narratives from informal women workers into immersive formats that connect data with their lived experience and prompt cross-sectoral conversations that reframe health, equity, and resilience?

Explore Project Website

Supported by

Self Employed Womens Association
Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute
Office of the Vice Provost

Team

Curators
Dr. Satchit Balsari
Hiteshree Das

Research
Abhishek Bhatia and Kartikeya Bhatotia

Design
Hiteshree Das, Karthik Girish, Shariq M. Shah, and Vishwesh Surve

Technology
Robert McCarthy,
Deepak Ramola, Selmon Rafey, and Bettina Wyler


Fabrication
Makepeace

   
 











Process
The design process began with conceptualizing an immersive experience that drew insights from the oral testimonies of SEWA members and combined evocative visuals—photographs, audio, and video—with a hand-embroidered 18ft x 9ft tapestry created by the members. 
I led an 8-member, cross-disciplinary team with expertise in research, video editing, engineering, photography, programming, and design, coordinating efforts across teams in India and the United States. As the exhibition evolved, I managed design adaptations and spatial changes to maintain the vision, ensuring alignment across all collaborators and seamlessly bridging cultural and logistical contexts.




 
Project Launch at Harvard’s Center for Government and International Studies



The HUM SAB EK (We Are One) exhibition, hosted by the Mittal Institute, was successfully launched on April 15, 2024, at CGIS South in Cambridge. The opening event celebrated the powerful responses of India’s Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the way a dynamic team from Harvard, along with SEWA members themselves, put together a multi-media exhibition. The room was packed with guests including Harvard faculty and researchers representing a wide range of schools and departments; affiliates of the Mittal Institute; and students, some of them involved in the project, along with their friends.

The program opened with a conversation between SEWA’s Kapilaben Vankar, Executive Director Reemaben Nanavaty, and Sarita Gupta of the Ford Foundation. Kapilaben reflected on how informal workers endured COVID-19 through collective support, echoing Elaben Bhatt’s vision of an “economy of nurturance.”

Dr. Satchit Balsari and Dr. Rishi K. Goyal then discussed how the exhibition used arts and humanities to communicate public health research. They emphasized the value of qualitative methods in making science accessible and grounded in lived experience. Design Lead and Co-Curator Hiteshree Das walked the audience through 12 installations showcasing the resilience of India’s 90% informal workforce.