{"id":19873,"date":"2026-01-06T19:42:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T19:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/01\/06\/kochi-muziris-biennale-2026-nikhil-chopras-for-the-time-being\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T19:42:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T19:42:50","slug":"kochi-muziris-biennale-2026-nikhil-chopras-for-the-time-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2026\/01\/06\/kochi-muziris-biennale-2026-nikhil-chopras-for-the-time-being\/","title":{"rendered":"Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2026: Nikhil Chopra\u2019s \u201cFor the Time Being\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, \u201cFor The Time Being,\u201d runs through March 31, 2026. Courtesy of Kochi Biennale Foundation<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Kochi Biennale, which launched in 2012, was not only the first Indian biennial of contemporary art but also the most politically engaged and socially critical contemporary art platform in the country, addressing some of India\u2019s most pressing issues despite being the only major government-funded exhibition. As such, it has retained a distinct civic responsibility. Conceived by artists Bose Krishnamachari<\/a> and Riyas Komu<\/a> with support from the Government of Kerala, the Kochi Biennale was modeled from the outset on large-scale international exhibitions like Venice and S\u00e3o Paulo while remaining rooted in the layered histories of Kerala\u2019s port cities. Artist-led and experimental in ethos, the biennale is intentionally site-responsive, engaging directly with the historical fabric of the coastal city and its colonial past. It occupies heritage buildings, warehouses, godowns and public sites around Fort Kochi and Mattancherry, and places strong emphasis on public programming as an event conceived first and foremost for local people.<\/p>\n

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Under the curatorial direction of Nikhil Chopra<\/a> and HH Art Spaces in Goa, the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB)\u2014which opened on December 12 and runs through March 31, 2026\u2014unfolds across multiple venues in Kochi and features sixty-six artists and collectives from more than twenty countries. Titled \u201cFor the Time Bein<\/a>g,\u201d this edition brings attention back to the body, to our physical, sensorial and emotional experience of the world now, in the present moment, acknowledging the limits and possibilities of being human as the only perspective available to us. At its center is the notion of time understood from a purely human perspective. \u201cThe idea is that we measure our experience in the distance between heartbeats,\u201d Chopra told Observer, emphasizing how, in a time defined by artificiality and synthesis, the biennale focuses instead on the physical dimension\u2014our embodied presence and lived experience of the world.<\/p>\n

\"Cinthia\"Cinthia
Cinthia Marcelle\u2019s History (Version Mattancherry)<\/em>\u00a0at Anand Warehouse. Courtesy of Kochi Biennale Foundation<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve really placed the body at the center of our investigation\u2014our understanding, our research, our way of thinking, working and being,\u201d he adds, noting that the notion of \u201cbeing,\u201d both as verb and noun, anchors this edition. \u201cThe biennale wants to take stock of what it means to be present on this planet together. Even though we inherit collective histories and memories, and we speak of ourselves as a people stretched across time, landscapes and geographies, one fact remains: we are here now,\u201d Chopra reflected. \u201cWe are contemporaries of one another in the present, and we share this moment. That sense of presence is one of the forces driving us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here, the human body is understood as the only filter, site of encounter and witness to temporality as we confront the present world. For this reason, presence\u2014physical presence, specifically\u2014sits at the core of the show and shaped the criteria for selecting artists. \u201cWhenever we visited an artist\u2019s studio, or when I looked back at artworks I\u2019ve encountered around the world, we were asking: can we feel the artist\u2019s presence? Not only through performance or liveness, though those are part of our programming, but in any medium\u2014can you believe that the artist is truly here, in their work?\u201d Chopra said. This approach led to the notion of \u201cthe neighboring body.\u201d \u201cWe wanted to feel the sweat, blood and toil of the artist, whether in painting, sculpture or any other form, and we were looking for intelligence that emerges through making.\u201d Ultimately, the biennale is about returning us to real encounters\u2014with the work, with others and with the world.<\/p>\n

\"A\"A
Work by Kulpreet Singh at Anand Warehouse. Courtesy of Kochi Biennale Foundation<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In assembling this edition\u2019s group of international and local artists, Chopra resisted the notion that an international curator must spend months in transit, endlessly flying between biennales, fairs and studios. Instead, he looked back on nearly 25 years of curatorial practice, revisiting longstanding relationships with artists who had been collaborators, interlocutors or companions across earlier projects. \u201cMany of these relationships were formed through years of working together, exchanging ideas and navigating exhibitions side by side,\u201d he explained. \u201cThat existing foundation naturally shaped the initial group of 66 artists, since the process was grounded in trust and longstanding dialogue rather than discovery through constant travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the curatorial research, time and resources were devoted to exploring India\u2019s diverse and often overlooked artistic landscape, including regions outside the main metropolitan centers. \u201cRather than crisscrossing the globe, I spent time traveling across India, visiting studios in various regions and getting to know emerging practices more closely,\u201d Chopra explained. \u201cFor many of these artists, this will be a first opportunity to present their work on a platform of this scale, alongside practitioners who are internationally recognized and have developed extensive, mature bodies of work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The artist list now spans major international figures like Ibrahim Mahama<\/a>, Adrian Villar Rojas, Marina Abramovi\u0107, Otobong Nkanga<\/a> and Nari Ward<\/a>, as well as rising international voices such as Sandra Mujinga<\/a>, LaToya Ruby Frazier<\/a>, M\u00f3nica de Miranda, Maria Hassabi<\/a> and Shiraz Bayjoo<\/a>. They appear alongside established, emerging and newly rediscovered artists from India and its diaspora, including modernist Gieve Patel<\/a>, Monika Correa<\/a>, Sapta Gupta<\/a>, Bhasha Chakrabarti<\/a>, Arti Kadam<\/a> and Mathew Krishanu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rigor, the practice and the resilience of some of these artists are incredible,\u201d Chopra noted, referring particularly to the Indian artists included and emphasizing not only their craftsmanship but also the depth of their material investigations. \u201cThey are so deeply engaged with what\u2019s happening around them: their research, their observations, the risks they\u2019re taking in their practices, their commitment, their love for making, their love for process. The artists we\u2019re inviting to the Biennale\u2014especially the younger generation\u2014are truly ready for this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biennale, he reflected, becomes an important catalyst for a new generation of local artists\u2014a place where different levels of experience meet, and younger practitioners can observe how more seasoned artists navigate the realities of complex exhibition-making.<\/p>\n

\"Ibrahim\"Ibrahim
Ibrahim Mahama\u2019s Parliament of Ghosts<\/em> at Anand Warehouse. DHANUJ PHOTOGRAPHY | Courtesy of Kochi Biennale Foundation<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The biennale also highlights overlooked figures often working outside mainstream circuits. Among them, Chopra mentions Malu Joy<\/a> (Sister Roswin CMC), a nun who creates intimate drawings of elderly women she cared for. \u201cThe way she captures these deeply expressive, almost expressionistic faces\u2014it\u2019s absolutely the kind of work that deserves to be shown at any international exhibition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the same time, bringing established artists to India remains essential, as their experience with large-scale exhibitions becomes especially valuable in a context where production conditions can be demanding and unpredictable. \u201cArtists here need agility; they need to shift, to shape-shift, to adapt their ideas to the realities in which we are making this exhibition,\u201d Chopra said.<\/p>\n

All the included artists were encouraged to think and act site-specifically, responding to venues directly connected to India\u2019s history of trade and colonialism. This edition takes over spaces such as Aspinwall House, once the headquarters of the trading company Aspinwall & Company Ltd; Pepper House, a former spice warehouse on Vembanad Lake; and Island Warehouse on Willingdon Island, created in 1928 during the modernization of Kochi Harbour. Additional heritage venues include the 111 (KVJ Building), once a center of the rice trade in Mattancherry; Space, formerly the Indian Chamber of Commerce; and Durbar Hall in Ernakulam, originally the royal courthouse of the Maharaja of Kochi.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ghosts of the past are etched right into the walls of these warehouses\u2014the very spaces the artists are showing in,\u201d Chopra observed. \u201cThey\u2019re not white, pristine cubes at all; they\u2019re full of texture, memory, smells, history\u2014distant voices still coming through. You can feel the Dutch, you can feel the Portuguese; their histories are woven into the warp and weft of Kochi itself. It\u2019s part of the embroidery, the textile\u2014the tapestry\u2014of this place.\u201d This, he explained, is why he titled the exhibition \u201cFor the Time Being.\u201d It is about accepting and understanding what we have and who we are.<\/p>\n

For Chopra, this biennale is an invitation to understand our relationship to the present in relation to the past. \u201cIn many ways, the voices coming from parts of the world that have been oppressed, exploited and enslaved are written into our DNA,\u201d he considered. \u201cWe don\u2019t choose our bodies, and that inheritance runs through us like a kind of cellular memory. It\u2019s embedded in the place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Indigo\"Indigo
Shiraz Bayjoo, Sa Sime Lamer<\/em> (2025). Director_s Bungalow, Aspinwall House, Fort Kochi. Courtesy of the Kochi Biennale Foundation<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many of the projects grew directly out of site visits, prompting artists to develop work in response to the particularities of each location. \u201cArtists were asked to react rather than simply act,\u201d Chopra emphasized. Yet not all artists are activists. \u201cThere is an active, engaged quality in the way we present our ideas, but ultimately it\u2019s the aesthetics, the desire and the poetics that shape the politics in most cases. We\u2019re bringing those elements into the work, but we\u2019re not foregrounding the politics in an overt, confrontational way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being the only major cultural institution funded by public money also carries the risk of political oversight. Chopra acknowledged this obliquely, noting that over years of organizing projects in India, he and his team at HH Art Spaces have learned how to navigate potential censorship or controversy. \u201cWe\u2019ve been around for about twelve years, working in Goa for the past ten. My own artistic career spans about twenty to twenty-five years. My practice has always been about subverting certain ideas. The politics are there, but they sit beneath the aesthetic surface. Over time, we\u2019ve learned how to navigate and circumvent the powers that might oppose what we do. You have to arrive at those conversations slowly; you don\u2019t just deliver everything upfront. It\u2019s more like letting a drop of poison sit in a cup of wine. The work carries the charge, but it reveals itself subtly, not all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

That civic responsibility also translates into a biennale conceived primarily for local audiences: roughly 90 percent of visitors come from Kerala within a 300 to 400-kilometer radius, and attendance this year is expected to reach one million. Developing a substantial public program was therefore essential, extending the biennale\u2019s content well beyond the sixty-six artists and fifty-five new commissions. \u201cThis entire part of the city is going to come alive over the next four days,\u201d Chopra said, noting the strong local appetite for art. \u201cPeople come with a sense of curiosity, inquiry, joy, desire and wonder. They genuinely want to see contemporary art, and we try to feed that hunger\u2014quite literally, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canteen Project, for instance, is a living, participatory collaboration between artists Bani Abidi<\/a> from Pakistan and Anupama from India, conceived as a shared food project for visitors. Meals are prepared by a women\u2019s empowerment collective in Kerala associated with a major state initiative. \u201cSo you have Indian and Pakistani women collaborating, an architect and an artist working side by side, and the meals being served by this women\u2019s group. It feels like a big mama project\u2014nourishing the collective, in a present moment of human encounter and sharing, and completely aligned with the spirit of this edition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Visitors\"Visitors
Work by Aditya Puthur at SMS Hall. Courtesy of Kochi Biennale Foundation<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The curator stressed that accessibility is fundamental. The exhibition, he argues, should connect with audiences through immediacy, delight and seduction rather than alienate them with dense language, heavy theory or works requiring extensive explanation. \u201cThe connection should begin with something immediate\u2014seductive, delightful\u2014because we\u2019re still in the process of building a critical mass of contemporary art viewers. It\u2019s important to invite people in, not make them feel uncomfortable about being here, and even when discomfort arises, it should feel like part of a welcoming experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the core of Chopra and HH Art Spaces\u2019 curatorial approach for this sixth edition is a commitment to embracing the character of the place\u2014its specificities, challenges and potential\u2014rather than aspiring to resemble anything else. Instead of delivering a polished spectacle for the art world, VIPs or the international circuit, Chopra wanted to bring visitors into the act of making, into the energies of creativity, experimentation and exploration. \u201cThe goal isn\u2019t to produce a Swiss exhibition; that doesn\u2019t work here. The goal is to create something that matches the soul and the conditions of this place, and that\u2019s the connection I\u2019m trying to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Work by Jayashree Chakravarty at Anand Warehouse. Courtesy of Kochi Biennale Foundation<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More in art fairs, biennials and triennials<\/b><\/h3>\n

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