This project responds to the Wages for Housework movement, a feminist campaign that emerged in the 1970s to expose how domestic labour, performed largely by women, has been historically unpaid, invisible, and taken for granted, despite being essential to the functioning of society. While the movement originated decades ago, its political urgency remains, particularly within the Indian context.

In India, domestic labour is rarely recognised as work. Instead, it is framed as duty, love, sacrifice, and moral responsibility. Women who perform these roles are often placed on a pedestal and granted respect within families and communities. However, this respect functions as a reward system rather than an inherent right. It is conditional and offered only when women serve without complaint, prioritise others over themselves, and do not question or resist their assigned roles. Women who set boundaries or renegotiate these expectations are frequently perceived as difficult, selfish, or disrespectful.

The project uses the sari as both material and metaphor. Traditionally associated with femininity, virtue, and respectability, the sari operates here as a social structure as much as a garment. Worn over a printed textile poster in the form of a ghunghat, it symbolises how women’s labour is constantly present yet culturally concealed. The ghunghat signals obedience and moral virtue to society, while simultaneously erasing the labour, exhaustion, and resistance beneath it. In this way, visibility of virtue comes at the cost of the invisibility of labour.

The protest text is printed on fabric rather than paper, shifting activist language into the domestic and bodily realm. English and Hindi texts coexist, referencing both global feminist movements and the lived realities of women in India. The poster is attached to the sari using safety pins instead of permanent stitching, emphasising impermanence, fragility, and adjustment. This construction reflects how women’s roles are constantly modified to suit social convenience, yet never fully dismantled.

The project documentation incorporates burning as an action. Fire is not used to destroy the work, but to introduce tension, symbolising anger, resistance, and refusal. It disrupts the sari's decorative expectations and challenges the romanticisation of care and sacrifice. Through textile, performance, and protest, Wages for Housework questions how honour, praise, and respect are used to replace autonomy, choice, and economic recognition, and asks whose labour is allowed to be seen, valued, and refused.