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One of the opening episodes of the Mahābhārata tells about King Pandu, a skilled archer. In one of his hunting journeys in the forests, his entourage encountered two deer mating. Pandu drew his bow, shot an arrow at one of the deer and killed it. With his last breath, the deer revealed that he was actually the reincarnation of a god, cursing Pandu, that he should die the next time he makes love. For 15 years, Pandu refrained from having relations with his women, until one day, he could not restrain himself and began engaging in contact with one of them. He died on the spot. 

Deer antlers protrude from a concrete slab. At other points, the box itself discharges organic fluid, and collects it in the channels, as though intended for an unknown user. What is it that is buried in the box – is it the flesh of the hunted or the hunger of the hunter?

The greater the breach in the concrete becomes, the more the incarnations of the matter hidden within becomes revealed – its obscure growth after death, the duration of the years of restraint. The burial space becomes an alchemic lab, a breeding ground and incubator all at once. Repression itself is reincarnated in memory, like a living organ, metamorphosed in material, engraved in the urban tissue of the incessant archival work of forgetting.

Between the emergence of the antlers to the realm of the channels, the peculiar laws are exposed – of the preservation of passion, refusing to die.

Oded Wolkstein

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