The Infinite Episode

Twenty different species of fauna, depicted in a state of dreaming sleep, make up Jitish Kallat’s The Infinite Episode. The work portrays an animalian utopia: the creatures, despite real-life divergences, are here represented approximately equal in size. They share not simply a physical space, but a state of being – sleep – wherein physical scale has been made irrelevant.

That various species have been brought together also suggests an idealised realm. The giraffe and ostrich, for instance, are native to Africa, a continent unfamiliar to the kangaroo, which is mostly found in Australia. Moreover, creatures that would ordinarily be predator and prey, such as the bear and deer, sleep mere inches apart. Kallat’s work, through an affirmation of likeness and fleeting togetherness, provokes broader deliberations on human coexistence, hierarchy and inequity.