Abstract
This photo essay is a journey across the Chennai-Bangalore Expressway and North Arcot socio-cultural landscape. As a visual research, it attempts to decipher the dismayed presence of Dr B. R. Ambedkar’s roadside caged statues, monuments erected by local Dalit communities. Whereas these statues should evince the Dalit’s assertiveness in the public space, the research suggests that the iron grille cage produces a reverse effect via a transposition of use and meaning, unveiling the community’s social subjugation. It also indicates that the issue extends beyond endangered statues; in fact, what has been threatened is the very freedom of political expression in public spaces. Through the use of photography as a research tool, the embodiment of images finally discusses the aesthetical and political aspects of the public arena of the Chennai-Bangalore Expressway, one of the arterial highways of Southern India.
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