Cast in Shadows

Jitish Kallat’s new show maps the transformation of bodies in relation to cosmic elements and cosmological rhythms as opposed to industrial clock-time, reveals Anuj Daga.

- Anuj Daga

In his most recent works exhibited at Nature Morte’s virtual viewing room from the 11th of August to the 31st of December, Jitish Kallat continues his long-standing artistic preoccupation of exploring the meaning of time and its effect on the transformation of bodies.

Kallat’s attention was held by the shadow constellations of twigs that had fallen in his studio, the changing outlines of which are woven into the rhythms of a new biological universe. Circadian Studies draws several associations together making us dwell upon the cycles of experience and existence; it makes us rethink the modes of corporeal and cosmological inhabitation.

The close observation of shifting shadows has been a civilizational preoccupation. In the 16th century Europe, Galileo made accurate renderings of shadows he observed on the surface of the moon through his telescope to postulate the centrality of the sun within the solar system. Around the same time in the Middle East, sundials were embedded within the architectures of several mosques so that prayers could be attuned to cosmic alignments. Such obsessions for finding higher meaning have left us with fantastic instruments like astrolabes that inscribe us in the geometry of a proximate galaxy, and at the same time, monumental observatories that reflect astronomical cartographies of the visible sky on earth. In India, the time-devices of Jantar Mantar, fantastically designed to counter the delineation of shadows, bring to us the most subtle yet phenomenal sensation – those that confirm the sublime duality of the fact that the planet that holds us all still, is indeed moving.