A Day in the Life of Kiribati
Shown at: ‘Untimely Calendar’, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi (2014)

Clock, nameplate, tape

The history of clock-making saw a definite turn when devices for understanding time shifted away from the fluid principles of ancient Chinese water and incense clocks – for which time was a continuum, thus making it more difficult to surgically separate past and present. In contrast, modern clocks, with their precise ticking seconds, impose rigid separations, creating conceptual barriers between moments. This disjunction makes “now” feel distant from “then” and yet, paradoxically, connects disparate places under a shared measure of time. In a syncopated sort of way, we are contemporaneous with other times and spaces

In this syncopated simultaneity, the clock becomes a symbol of both concurrence and dissonance. While London and Lagos may share the same time, their experiences of “now” diverge, shaped by local contexts and histories.

A Day in the Life of Kiribati gives the time of Kiribati, the first land on Earth to switch the calendar over to 2000, and which could be the first place on this planet to disappear with rising sea levels because of global warming. Here, timekeeping becomes both a marker of continuity and a reminder of impermanence.