The play begins with two boxes on moving platforms(dogs). One large cardboard box that appears to be an IKEA type large box. There is a hint that there could be self assembled furniture in there. The second a small box with a key hole and a slit for the money. There is light on the two boxes.Really sad tragic music plays for a few minutes and nothing happens. Music is in Hindi and a subtitle bar hangs from the roof. The audience holds red envelopes
in their hands that have written on top. Not to open until a given point. A blade is attached on top in a box. A sticker on the envelope says ‘USE AT THE RIGHT MOMENT.’
The Ikea box contains a special piece of furniture that is constructed to sacrifice farmers as collateral cost for neoliberal bio power The farmer suicides that have taken place in India since the 1990s constitute the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history. We collectively fail to recognise both the particularity of bio-politics in a context where the presence of death is ubiquitous and the way in which the death of some may reinforce the bio-political governing of life of others. The farmer suicides express rather than contest the devaluation of “unproductive” lives in neoliberal capitalism. The extent of farmer suicides prove the function of death in neoliberal bio politics.
with Oneka Van Schrader and Laura Mentink