eden bhutia

Rethinking Mobility, Memory & Agency in the Himalayan Periphery

How do people move when the systems around them don’t? Margins in Motion is a feminist, decolonial exploration of mobility in Gangtok, Sikkim, a hill town shaped by layered borders, fractured infrastructure, and invisible rules of belonging. Through role-playing personas and speculative scenarios, this project reimagines how care, community, and memory can guide urban design beyond extractive development and state-led templates.

Spanning agro-cooperative networks, care-based infrastructures, and cultural reclamation of archival and institutional space, the work invites new ways of thinking about who gets to move, stay, and shape the city. Told through stories, zines, site experiments, and visual tools, Margins in Motion offers an alternative lens to look at urban futures rooted in lived experience, collective resilience, and the radical potential of everyday movement.