Duration - 1hour 34minutes
Raised by Clocks examines the relationship between time, productivity and the disciplined body, asking how deeply the demand to remain useful becomes embedded in our understanding of ourselves.
The work emerges from an upbringing in which stillness was rarely neutral. To rest, to lie down, to take a nap or simply to do nothing could become evidence of laziness or poor character. Productivity, by contrast, offered a measure of worth. Time was expected to be occupied, accounted for and made useful.
For two hours, Aparna remains completely still, her forehead pressed against a cane mat. The prolonged contact leaves an imprint on her skin. What began as an absence of action produces a physical trace: a mark that records the duration of an otherwise unproductive interval. The imprint becomes a material witness to time spent outside the logic of productivity. It is both record and accusation, documenting not what the body has accomplished, but what it has refused to do.
The work also considers how these expectations are inscribed upon the female body. The pressure to remain occupied extends beyond formal labour into the everyday demands of care, availability and usefulness. Rest can become something that must be justified; stillness, something that requires permission.
What does it mean to be raised by clocks? When does time become a measure of worth? Who decides whether an hour has been wasted? And can refusing productivity become a way of reclaiming time?
In Raised by Clocks, stillness is not presented as an absence, but as a condition through which the body, duration and social expectation become visible. The mark left on the body remains as evidence of time that was not made useful.