Stills from Roadscene (2023), 4.14 min

This video work is a representational digital construct of the Farmer Protest that took place at the Delhi border for 1 year, 4 months and 2 days in 2020-21. The various elements constructed in the video such as temporary tents, community kitchens, tractors, barricades and barbed wire fences, flashing images of a deity, isolated flowering plants stopping at the foot of the fortifications, spectres and finally a stage for political speech, speaks of public protest and resistance, mystification and repression, and hope in the face of continuous struggle. The road thus transforms into a site of conflict, fortified as it is, and this conflict takes the shape of a war zone during a time of cessation yet not a truce. The video preserves the ephemeral aspects of this movement and remembers the many ebbs and flows of an organised protest which despite its successes also incurred heavy losses, both in lives and in resources.