KOCHI: Jitish Kallat, who curated the second edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, is back this time with two satellite projects – his seminal installation ‘Covering Letter’, and a curation titled ‘Tangle Hierarchy’. Both are displayed at TKM Warehouse in Fort Kochi.
Created a decade ago, ‘Covering Letter’ is shrouded in mystery and has an ominous feeling to it. Weeks before World War II began, Mahatma Gandhi wrote a letter to Adolf Hitler for the sake of humanity. Through his installation, Jitesh revisits the historical letter that exudes his philosophy and passion for non-violence.
The words of the letters are projected onto a curtain of cascading fog. The shadow of the lines in the letters falls on the darkened floor. They gradually disappear into the mist, just like how the letter that was ignored.
When asked what inspired him to look into the past, Jitesh says: “An utterance from the past could offer insights into the present. My works attempt to recite or reevaluate history… they often reincarnate an exchange from a momentous historical setting so that we can let them interlace with our current intuitions and speak to us now at the present moment.”
Next to it is his curated exhibition about the traumatic Partition. One of the highlights of Tangled Hierarchy is a collection of five envelopes addressed to Gandhi, now conserved in the Mountbatten Archive at the University of Southampton.
When Mountbatten discussed the partition of the Indian subcontinent on Monday, June 2, 1947, Gandhi was on a vow of silence. So he wrote his replies on the backs of the envelopes to communicate his differences of opinion.
The exhibition also features works of various artists and relics from the Partition Museum. The trunks and other personal items of people fleeing the two new-born countries remind us of that horrible period, the lives lost.
Another work here by artist Mona Hatoum, ‘Hot Spot’, lights up the room in a red hue. The entire world here is depicted as a ‘hot spot’ — a place of military and civil unrest.