Covering Letter

2012
Fogscreen projection
Dimensions variable

Covering Letter is the reiteration of an unlikely piece of historic correspondence: a brief letter written by Mahatma Gandhi to Adolf Hitler a few weeks before Germany invaded Poland, setting off the Second World War. In his letter Gandhi makes an urgent appeal for peace, anticipating the depths of human savagery that the impending war would unleash. The pacifist and truth seeker begins his note with the words “Dear Friend,” addressing one of the most violent and deluded individuals to ever walk the earth.

As the words ascend along a film of descending mist, the audiences can walk through it, simultaneously inhabiting and dissipating the moving text. To Kallat, Gandhi’s request to Hitler is an open letter which speaks as much to the present as to the past; a ‘covering letter’ to an endless resume of human violence.