In Pendulum, Kawita Vatanajyankur reconstructs a human-sized ‘Newton’s Cradle’. A familiar executive desk toy whereby multiple metal balls swing on pendulums. Arranged in sequence, the balls on the extreme ends of the line transfer their kinetic energy as they collide with the interior balls. This produces a distinctive and hypnotic ticking sound, but rather than keeping steady time, they become an indicator of the energy dissipating, of time slowing, of a dying sense of momentum. In Kawita Vatanajyankur’s version, her own body is strung upside down from the ankles, replicated 5 times in a line, inside a black-framed cradle. Her duplicated body, each holding a large tray of grain collides into its multiplied self, transferring the energy irregularly and infinitely. While Newton’s cradle demonstrates a fact of science, Vatanajyankur’s could be read as a demonstration of a social truth; that while energy should be diminished and transferred to another form when exhausted in one particular object, no such luck exists for the human struggle of labour and the toll it takes on our body. Our own human exhaustion defies the laws of physics and instead repeats itself in irregular cycles, offering no chance of escape of relief.