GANTAVYA (DESTINATION)

About the Project:

Gantavya is an artist poetry book project that engages with the discourse on labor migration within the globalized labor market.

The work combines images - including drawings, photographs, and collages - with poems in Nepali to depict the post-migrant experiences of Nepali returnees. This project is based on narrative interviews conducted in various locations across Nepal, presenting migrants' testimonies and personal accounts of their lived experiences. These narratives are rewritten, reinterpreted, and retold to convey complex themes such as dislocation and uprootedness, foreignness and belonging, as well as residential segregation and labor market segmentation.

The project was initially produced during the COVID-19 pandemic in June, 2020. Three editions of the book (20 x 20 cm) were circulated as physical objects through postal exchange. Each edition, enclosed within a stamped envelope and accompanied by an instructional guide, encouraged recipients to pass the book on to others. Gantavya was also featured as part of the exhibition series MANTIK.BERLIN.