In December 2023, I was visiting the India Art, Architecture and Design Biennale at the Red Fort in New Delhi when I came across pseudonymous street artist DAKU’s shadow work installation titled ‘Cycle of Time’. Although I was familiar with his work — having come across images of his graffiti and installations on the internet — ‘Cycle of Time’ was the first time I saw one of DAKU’s installations in person. It had a profound effect on me.
As I stood underneath the white lettered canopy of the installation and watched the winter sun move across the grey New Delhi sky, I couldn’t take my eyes off the bright white letters that spelled out the words ‘PAST IS PRESENT IS FUTURE IS PAST’ again and again and again in a trance-inducing sequence. An allusion to Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity which suggests that there is no clear distinction between past, present, and future, that they are all interconnected and co-exist in spacetime, the installation served as a commentary on the elusive nature of time — with time encompassing the past, present, and future in an ever-evolving continuum of existence.
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