Syzygy

2013
Dental plaster
Display dimensions variable

Installation view, NGMA, New Delhi

Syzygy is an installation composed of sleeping figures seated in positions that resemble those of weary commuters at train and bus stations. Even as they sleep with bent heads, some of the figures clasp at their bags, revealing a degree of restlessness and awareness of surroundings even in a state of near-surrender. In philosophy, the term “syzygy” is used to denote the union of two opposites. In astronomy, it refers to the linear alignment of celestial bodies within a gravitational system. Syzygy is also the name of an artwork familiar to Kallat since his art school days—the seminal stop-motion film made by Akbar Padamsee in 1970.

Syzygy is among several works by the artist that probe the nature of sleep as a way of receding from the world and the ordered time of a working day—a temporary voyage into an eternal, meditative space that each of us takes to sort through the clutter of our wakeful lives.