Work of Fire (2017)

'Work of Fire' is an attempt to engage with the fleeting, the transient and the ephemeral through fireworks. It takes a look at its varying aspects - as a local livelihood, global industry, an expression of joy and festivity and a metaphor, to pose the question: What does fireworks mean to us? In the process, it journeys from the grimy and dangerous firework factories and production centers in South India, to the pan-Indian festivals. 'Work of Fire' explores the human desire to create the spectacular to overcome the ordinary, interweaving the mythical and the historical in the backdrop of contemporary circuits of consumption and local subcultures of pyrotechnics. Oscillating between the monotony of everyday and the moments of excess that festivities embody 'Work of Fire' shows how fireworks becomes a act of transgression placed at the cusp of life and death.