KOCHI: The country’s only biennale is set to enter its sixth edition, with expansive and immersive art experiences for nearly four months, by turning the port-city into a site for dialogues around global perspectives.
The Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) will feature 22 venues, besides seven collaterals, significantly widening the socio-historical as well as political footprints of India’s largest contemporary art festival. To be inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on December 12, KMB-6 will run till March 31, 2026. The 110-day international exhibition hosts works by 66 artists/collectives from 25 countries, apart from a range of parallel shows.
The latest edition — curated by Nikhil Chopra with HH Art Spaces, Goa — is themed ‘For The Time Being’, which embraces “process as methodology”. The show envisions a “living ecosystem” where each element “shares space, time and resources” amid constant engagements with each other.
The opening ceremony of KMB-6 is scheduled to be held at the Parade Ground in Fort Kochi at 6 pm. It will be followed by a public concert by Shanka Tribe featuring Neha Nair, Resmi Satheesh and Shahabaz Aman. Earlier in the day, the Biennale flag will be hoisted at Aspinwall House at noon, soon after a thayambaka (percussion) recital by Margi Rahitha Krishnadas.
The KMB, which is typically held once in two years, had its debut in 2012. This time, it seeks to move away from the idea of ‘singular and central’, according to the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF), which is the key organiser. As the curatorial vision states, the “rootedness” gained from the previous editions allows KMB-6 to go beyond the conventional biennale model as a “finished spectacle”.
For the first time, KMB visitors will have a majority of the exhibits outside the iconic Aspinwall House in Fort Kochi — a key location along with the adjacent Mattancherry. Besides the established Durbar Hall Gallery in downtown Ernakulam, the newest biennale introduces a venue beyond the mainland: Island Warehouse in Willingdon Island, accessible by crossing the Water Metro, ferry, or by road.
The KBF noted that the increased number of venues as their locations, which are more spread across than usual, will imply a significant rise in the time visitors spend at the sixth edition. “No less than three days,” KBF chairperson Venu V pointed out. KMB-6 will simultaneously feature exhibitions and verticals such as Invitations, Students’ Biennale, Art By Children and Edam — from December 13 till the end of the biennale.