“We laborers are here to express ourselves: to cry, laugh, get angry, celebrate, get emotional, be silly, and yes, be vulnerable (though we already are). We are here to rise, to fight, to mingle, to protest, to protect—and I mean protecting you all—and so much more. Do you want to hear us?“
Labour Lens is an art- and media-based platform that enables labourers to express themselves in the most authentic and creative ways possible. The idea is to move away from the academic lens often applied to labor, which dictates current norms and is highly exclusionary, offering little agency to laborers themselves. At Labour Lens, we strive to express through the perspective of labourers, not the traditional academic framework.
Labour Lens has evolved from an informal blog called City of Labourer Speaks on social media, which served as a platform to celebrate the lives of laborers. For the initial five years, City of Labourers Speaks was a personal blog, a space for expressing thoughts and stories in every possible way. After running this platform for over half a decade, it felt right to transform it into a public space, where the stories of labourers could reach everyone.
And so, here we are, with a new look and name, brimming with even more enthusiasm and love to showcase the life histories of laborers.
At present, we are running an online art and media magazine called Labour Chowk as our starting point. Stay tuned for many more exciting projects and initiatives to celebrate the lives of laborers!
Labour Chowk | Magazine
We leave for the city to work; we leave our homes for the factory. We leave the factory to go home, but the factory never leaves us- first it protects us, and then it kills us. In the end, our dead bodies leave for the village.
We laborers are here to express ourselves: to cry, laugh, get angry, celebrate, get emotional, be silly, and yes, be vulnerable (though we already are). We are here to rise, to fight, to mingle, to protest, to protect- and I mean protecting you all- and so much more. Do you want to hear us?
Labour Chowk, which means “labor stand,” is a place you’ll find in every city- a spot where we sell our labor to you. But here, at Labour Chowk, we are not here to sell our labor. We are here to tell our tales. Labour Chowk is an online art magazine that celebrates the lives of laborers through various art forms- poetry, short fiction, paintings, cartoons, songs, photographs, and more. But not academia.