The Kochi Biennale Foundation is delighted to announce its programmes and exhibitions for the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Emerging from the idea of the biennale as a shared ecosystem where multitudes coexist without a nucleus, we ask: how can we speak to the global in local tongues? 

Our imagination is situated within the realities and possibilities of our sites and contexts. We seek affinitive alignments and embrace slowness. This, we believe, would allow conversations and forms to grow, ferment, decay, or transform; to foreground relationships of nourishment and active care. We hold place for joy and grief, whilst learning from forms of gathering and being together. We acknowledge that it is impossible to conjure imaginations of a world without acknowledging the structures of violence and othering, and the unfolding of a genocide.

Conversations, film, food, music, theatre, workshops, and choreographies unfold over 109 days, led by Mario D’Souza, Director of Programmes, with Ananthan Suresh, Mashoor Ali, and Rebecca Martin. 

D’Souza notes, “To think with people is a gift in this fractured, polarised world. It is important to find joy, share a meal, grieve, and come to terms with loss. Resilience, in the face of adversity and forms of systemic erasure, is one of humanity’s greatest strengths. We honour caregivers and those that keep hope alive in our broken world”.

The Biennale Pavilion commission for 2025-26 was awarded to Senthil Kumar Doss for Primordial, which was selected by a jury composed of Aric Chen, Bose Krishnamachari, Radhika Desai, Shimul Javeri Kadri, and Tony Joseph. 

The Pavilion is the beating heart of the biennale, activated by gatherings, events, and happenings. These include “Nothing will remain other than the thorn lodged in the throat of this world,” a lecture-performance by Noor Abed and Haig Aivazian; a presentation of Somnath Waghmare cinematic work; “Imagining Zomia,” a conversation with practitioners, film makers, historians and artists to re-examine the highlands of Central, South, and Southeast Asia beyond their framing as peripheral or stateless zones; “Statues Must Die” by Naeem Mohaiemen; “(Towards) Crip Aesthetics: Disability as Method” by Resting Museum engages with crip aesthetics as a mode of resistance to able-bodied and able-minded norms, foregrounding lived experience as a site of theory and art-making; “Eelam Dialogues” with Meena Kandasamy and Nimmi Gowrinathan, and presentations of films by the Dharamshala International Film Festival, and the Palestine Film Institute; “History of Long Durational Performances and MAI,” a performance by Marina Abramović; and South by South which brings together artists, curators, and institutions to explore the intertwined histories of trade, migration, violence and cultural hybridities across the Indian Ocean. A full list of contributors and a schedule will be announced in the second half of November. 

Invitations was initiated in 2022 in the post-pandemic landscape to think with and learn from independent, artist-run initiatives, and public exhibitions from the Southern, majoritarian world. In sharing space and resources, we share frameworks and learn from each other’s work, methodologies, and challenges. This year, we see contributions from Alice Yard (Trinidad and Tobago), Alkazi Theatre Archives, in collaboration with Alkazi Collection of Photography (India), Bienal das Amazônias (Brazil), Conflictorium (India), Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research (Palestine), Ghetto Biennale (Haiti), Khoj International Artists’ Association (India), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Panamá (Panama), Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (Kenya), Packet (Sri Lanka), and ruangrupa/Gudskul (Jakarta), amongst others. 

Realised as part of our Foundation exhibitions, Edam foregrounds artistic practices and processes from Kerala, and is curated by Aishwarya Suresh and K.M. Madhusudhan. Set across three venues, it weaves 36 projects by local artists as essay projects.

The sixth edition of the Students Biennale(SB) brings together 70 artist projects across four venues, mapping a record 150 art schools across the country. SB is curated by Khursheed Ahmed and Salman Bashir Baba; Savyasachi Anju Prabir and Subkanya Deb; Secular Art Collective represented by Bhushan Bhombhale, Khan Shamim Akhtar, Salik Ansari, and Shamooda Amrelia; GABAA; Anga Art Collective; Ashok Vish and Chinar Shah; and Seethal CP and Sudheesh Kottembram. The Thinking Lab, an extended shape-shifting site, will host workshops, seminars, performances, and programming.

Art by Children (ABC) programme, led by Blaise Joseph with Neethu KS, creates non-competitive, fearless, creative art spaces for young minds. Through workshops led by artists and cultural practitioners, it inculcates learning beyond the curriculum, engaging the perceptive minds of children, educators, parents, and communities.

We relaunch our Residency Programme with Oraayiram Kadal/A Thousand Seas, a long-term research and development project extending from the Foundation’s interest in trans-oceanic, trans-regional worldings that challenge western, colonial, and post-colonial forms of identification and classification. We are interested in speculative and/or embodied histories that approach lands and seas through the experiences of the people who traversed them. It seeks clues and offerings in stories and songs, legends and lies to contemplate and learn practices of survival and resistance, and those left out of mainstream, state-prescribed narratives. It acknowledges transmissions - stories, goods, Gods, beasts, and seeds - and people that voluntarily or involuntarily took to uncertain seas. These cultures then produced were born out of possibilities and resilience, but also the violence of imperialism and extraction. We host our first batch of artists, including Daniel Godínez Nivón (Netherlands/Mexico) and Shivay La Multiple (France), who will be joined by returning artists Flo Maak and Juliane Tübke (Germany) to showcase works from their times in Kochi.

To plan your visit, and for any further information, please visit kochimuzirisbiennale.org or write to info@kochimuzirisbiennale.org. 

We thank all our collaborators and supporters for helping us sustain the Kochi-Muziris Biennale over the last ten years. The Kochi Biennale Foundation is a registered non-profit charitable trust.