Landscapes Or Reality is neatly framed from here', produced at the Khoj Workshop, Mumbai (2005)

In June 2005 the KHOJ International Artists’ Workshop was held in Mumbai at the Jindal Vijaynagar Steel Ltd, Vasind. Acclaimed international artists came together from Bangladesh, South Korea, Germany, Pakistan, Turkey, Sri Lanka, France, UK, Barbados and South Africa to work alongside prominent Indian artists from from Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Cochin and Kolkatta. The group worked intensively for 2 weeks activating their immediate space and pushing their practices through responding to the physical space. Describing her work in her artist’s statement at Khoj Mumbai (2005), Ayisha Abraham states, “It is the juncture where the slow meets the fast."// Landscapes, Or Reality is neatly framed from here, is a view of two sides of a highway number 3 on the Mumbai-Nasik Route. The Western Ghats make their presence felt here. The rocky hills represent a geological time. I focus on one such imposing hill, Maoli.// The culture of the highway speaks of another passage of time. I record a day in the life of such a highway dhaba: The Hotel Chakradhari Garden Family Restaurant and Permit Room. I deliberately choose writing as a form for these notes, as opposed to video. The presence of the camera changes reality, while writing allows anonymity. I try to direct the viewer to a time that ties together random daily happenings into a narrative that reads as part documentation and part pure fiction.// These two parts, two sides of Highway 3, come together as an installation.// The viewer is invited to come to the top floor of the guesthouse where the artists have been living. The bay windows in the bedroom overlook the Maoli hill. The audience is invited to sit and look out of the window. The camera is focused on the hill and in the process omits a group of tribal huts visible outside the window. A close-up tightly frames the hill and a cable directs this moving still to a television situated on the floor. The camera records the changes that occur through the day. Its mike is switched on to provide a kind of feedback, an amplified signal "the sound is both subtle and ominous. The view outside the window repeats itself in the form of a screensaver on a laptop. It reflects the very same view left behind in the room as the viewers rise from their seats.” – Ayisha Abraham, Artist’s Statement, part of Khoj Mumbai (2005)