Mending Women's Health Through Invisible Quilts

In Dharavi, one of Asia's largest urban, low-income settlements, health concerns among women are compounded by social, cultural, and gendered norms, and by poor living standards. As a result, many women do not receive adequate health care. This proposal sets out to engage and socialize women in Dharavi through a two-fold approach; a mobile sewing facility to empower women-led industry and adhering to social norms, and a discrete preventative-health laundry clinic inside to help women with hygienic practices during menstruation. The thesis is grounded in a magical realist framework to situate opposing gendered systems to one another and transgress the normative boundaries that affect women's safety and health. As such, by employing magical realist objectives, the proposal is a commentary on the current social climate and a method for imagining new possibilities.