HUM SAB EK

An immersive exhibition that highlights the actions of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), comprising 3-million-women working in India’s informal sector. 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 immersive experience. The exhibition is created in collaboration with SEWA members and 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
Drawing on oral histories and quantitative findings, the exhibition translates a post-disaster survey on the pandemic’s impact on India’s largest trade union of informal working women into a public, mobile experience. I shaped an immersive environment that weaves together striking visuals, photographs, audio, and video with a powerful 18 ft × 9 ft hand-embroidered tapestry created by 50 artisans across 18 states in India. The project sparked dialogue on social determinants of health and was exhibited at the Clinton Global Initiative, World Bank, Johns Hopkins, and the ILO in Geneva.

To bring a project of this scale to life, I led an eight-member team with expertise in research, video editing, engineering, GIS-mapping, programming, and visual design. I worked closely with vendors and fabricators to build the traveling exhibition, coordinated with a shipping company to manage logistics overseas, and liaised with program managers at each host institution.

Project Launch at Harvard’s Center for Government and International Studies
Watch panel discuss here

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.