Elevator from the Subcontinent, by Gigi Scaria, 2011

To experience the world inside Gigi Scaria’s video installation, Elevator from the Subcontinent, you must press a button as you would while waiting to go up or down in a building. Doors open to reveal video projections on three sides.

Scaria, who first showed the work at the Venice Biennale in 2011 and most recently at the India Art Fair in February, had the elevator manufactured by a company in Delhi, where he is based. He altered the metal frame to be able to project images of a city and the various caste-class hierarchies it engenders. Once viewers step inside the elevator, the doors close behind them, and the video moves in a way that creates the impression of ascending and descending. The experience can be dizzying and lasts around 10 minutes.

With this work, Scaria, whose practice has centred on the various pressures that urbanism places on the human body and psyche, has created a metaphor of the financial struggles of living in an urban area and the resulting aspiration for mobility. Inside, we see comfortable middle-class homes and other spaces with entire lives packed in one room, all devoid of people. The video ends with an image of the city as seen from above—infusing hope that it may yet make space for one and all.