Shot in black and white, Dilbar, which means ‘full of hearts’ in Bengali, is the name of the film’s main protagonist. He is a Bengali construction worker at the newly-built Sharjah Art Foundation Art Spaces. The city’s warm winter drives Dilbar into a slumber. His 'sleeping' existence shifts between the museum and the labour camp.
This hauntingly beautiful video installation depicts a portrait of a city builder, one of a million Bangladeshi workers currently living in the UAE. The work is not so much a structured narrative, as a series of hypnogogic, fragmented shots. Against the orchestrated sounds of dripping water and mechanical pounding, the dream-like and ghostly aura of Dilbar is seen drifting and hovering around, portraying the faint silhouette of the largely invisible migrant workforce in the UAE.
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