‘Palayan’: Art of leaving home for finding a living in capital

NEW DELHI: A second-class train compartment, its blue paint peeling and windows crammed with clothes, stands against a black backdrop at Delhi University's College of Art. From its doorway spills a heap of worn shirts, trousers and saris — garments collected from migrant workers from Bihar who now live and work in Delhi.

Titled ‘Palayan', the installation by Master of Fine Arts (MFA) final-year student Sourabh Kumar recreates the general-class coach — the most affordable and often overcrowded mode of travel for migrant labourers. The clothes used in the work are not props.
They were collected directly from workers in Shahdara and other parts of Delhi, and carry handwritten fragments of conversations — about wages, contractors, family responsibilities, village news and the uncertainty of daily wage work.


"Kitna time se sochat rahe ki laikan ke private school me naam likha di. Ab tankhwa badhi tab na kari," reads a line written across the leg of a pair of jeans — a father's unfulfilled wish to enrol his children in a private school once his salary increases.

Pinned beside the installation is a list of real names — of carpenters, painters and masons — many from Aurangabad, Chapra and Muzaffarpur in Bihar, who have spent decades moving between village and city in search of work.

"Having grown up in Bihar, I have witnessed first-hand how, for many families, migration is not temporary but cyclical — a continuous movement in search of survival through labour. The train becomes the primary link between home and work, between departure and return. The compression, crowding and unhygienic conditions in these compartments reflect the broader realities of labour migration," Kumar told TOI.

If ‘Palayan' focuses on those who leave, ‘Veerangana', an installation by another MFA final-year student, Rahul Kumar, turns attention to those who stay behind. Inside a fragile structure built with jute, sand and bricks stand veiled female figures draped in bright red odhnis, their faces covered.

The installation contrasts migration narratives to women in rural Rajasthan who remain in villages, holding households together as children and family members move away for education, employment or service.

Drawing from his experience of growing up in an army family in Rajasthan, Rahul Kumar said migration is "not only about physical movement, but also about distance and emotional weight".

"Since 2014, my mother has lived alone in our village, managing the home and land while family members moved away for work. The repeated female figures in my installation represent a single woman performing multiple roles — caregiver, protector and provider — her labour continuous and often unacknowledged," he said.

The installations are part of the annual student art exhibition at College of Art, open to visitors till Feb 28. Spread across the campus, the exhibition features works by undergraduate and postgraduate students, turning classrooms and corridors into galleries of lived realities and personal narratives.

Open from 10am to 7pm with free entry for the general public, the exhibition also includes a special student showcase where artworks, decorative items made from sustainable materials and functional design pieces are on sale. Visitors can engage with live portrait-making stalls and explore classrooms transformed with posters, installations and experimental displays created by students.