Crédits photos : © Into the Manhole
Winner of the XR for a Cause category at the Laval Virtual Awards 2026, the work Into the Manhole, developed by the IMXD Lab at the IDC School of Design at IIT Bombay, took home the prize awarded on 9 April at the Espace Mayenne. Held in Laval for 28 years, Europe’s largest XR event recognises the most promising XR projects each year across a range of categories. The XR for a Cause category honours projects that put immersive reality in service of social, environmental or humanitarian causes.
Amitabh holds a law degree and is out of work. To support his family, he turns to manual scavenging, one of the most dangerous and stigmatised jobs in India. One day, he descends into a hazardous manhole without protective equipment or safety supervision. Will he survive? That is the story told by Into the Manhole, a 6DOF experience that immerses the viewer in a fiction freely inspired by a well-documented reality.
Director Jayesh Pillai, head of the IMXD Lab, explains the choice of medium: “This is a very serious problem that still exists in India. Everyone can see that sewers are being cleaned everywhere, but nobody talks about it. It is something visible that remains invisible. We thought: why not let people experience what these men go through, in an immersive experience?” The story is fictional but grounded in rigorous documentary research, conveying the sensation of descending into the pipe, the danger, the claustrophobia.
A caste system still active in the 21st century
The experience is rooted in a specific social reality: the caste system, which historically assigns the most degrading tasks, including sewer cleaning, to populations at the bottom of the social hierarchy. A practice that is banned under Indian law, yet persists, particularly in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. “People think that cleaning is not their job, but that it is the job of these people. They are ostracised, they do not have access to other employment,” says Jayesh Pillai.
One scene in the experience shows a bystander filming the characters’ distress on their phone, without offering any help. A moment the director describes as particularly devastating to experience in immersion, and one that captures the project’s ambition: not to stop at emotion, but to provoke reflection and discussion on a subject widely covered by documentary and cinema, but rarely experienced in the first person.
Towards free distribution, targeting policymakers
The team continues to present the work at international festivals and events, including Laval Virtual. But the ambition goes beyond the usual circuit for immersive works: making the experience freely accessible in India, targeting in particular policymakers whose awareness could influence the evolution of legislation and its enforcement. Distribution via Steam or other open platforms is being considered, so that the work can be seen without financial barriers.
Beyond its social reach, Into the Manhole also feeds into the research conducted by the IMXD Lab into the narrative grammar of virtual reality, at the intersection of artistic creation and academic exploration.
