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How Kochi’s history and living traditions shape Nikhil Chopra’s vision for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale

The artist on curating the biennale's 6th edition and putting the body at the centre of all experiences

4 min readUpdated: Dec 6, 2025 12:23 PM IST

Performance artist Nikhil Chopra has curated the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (Credit: AJ Joji Photography)

Curated by prominent performance artist Nikhil Chopra with Goa-based collective HH Art Spaces, the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, which begins on December 12, features 66 artists/collectives from over 25 countries. Titled “For the Time Being”, the curatorial vision positions the biennale not as a static art showcase but a “living ecosystem” where there is emphasis on process, conversations and site-specific explorations.

Excerpts from an interview with Chopra:

Tell us about your journey from being a participating artist at the 2014 edition of the biennale to curating it this year?

My relationship with the biennale really grew out of my friendship with Bose (Krishnamachari, president of the Kochi Biennale Foundation). He was the maverick of the art world. When I was just beginning my career, he was already taking risks and challenging the system. When the biennale was announced in 2010, my first thought was that this is exactly what the subcontinent needs: a cutting-edge international contemporary art exhibition. India can be an extraordinary ground for artists from across the world to create, exhibit and share. I was first invited to participate in the biennale by Jitish Kallat in 2014, when I performed an over 50-hour piece La Perle Noire: Le Marais, which gave me an incredibly diverse audience. The engagement was not just with Kochi but also its people. The questions that the biennale was asking in Kochi are the same the HH Art Spaces was asking in Goa: How do we create spaces for artists from the world over and initiate edgy interactions? In the last edition, we looked after an ‘Invitations Project’, bringing together 10 performances by artists from the subcontinent and beyond. That felt like a trailer to something bigger and now we are here curating the biennale.

Every biennale also reflects the inherent practice of its artist-curator. This edition will see a lot of performance art. Could you tell us about that?

We can’t aspire to be what we are not and we want to remain honest to ourselves. As a collective, we have always been allied with performances, not exclusively perhaps, but even with the other art practices our lens has been to look at how to place the body at the centre of our inquiry, asking questions such as what emanates from the body to how it is a container of memory, our shelter or even our most vulnerable space. What we want to bring to the biennale is our understanding and relationship to time as a material and how the body is at the centre of all our experiences.

The curatorial note frames Kochi as a historical port city. In what ways will the biennale engage with its past?

There is often a narrative that India lacks resources or access to what the West has and I am cautious about that. In Kochi, the possibilities are immense. We are in a part of the world where we have access to living traditions, ancient wisdom; practices that existed 1,000 years ago are still alive. That, to me, is a resource. I want to shift the paradigm and also focus on the abundance in nature, how culture and agriculture have informed the history of the place. As a port town, Kochi has welcomed travellers, wanderers, traders and has seen goods and bodies move through this land for thousands of years. I don’t want to recognise that in a granular way, but feel it in the vibration of this land.

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Compared to the previous editions, the participating artists this year are fewer and Aspinwall House is only partially available. Tell us about some of the new interesting venues.

The number of artists may have reduced but the scale of the biennale has expanded. We’ve crossed the water into Willingdon Island, where we occupy a space the size of an aircraft hangar. New venues include three warehouses in Mattancherry, one of which used to be a marriage hall. These are large, chapel-like spaces that will host monumental works by Norwegian artist Sandra Mujinga and Athens-based Athina Koumparouli.

Vandana Kalra

Vandana Kalra is an art critic and Deputy Associate Editor with The Indian Express. She has spent more than two decades chronicling arts, culture and everyday life, with modern and contemporary art at the heart of her practice. With a sustained engagement in the arts and a deep understanding of India’s cultural ecosystem, she is regarded as a distinctive and authoritative voice in contemporary art journalism in India. Vandana Kalra's career has unfolded in step with the shifting contours of India’s cultural landscape, from the rise of the Indian art market to the growing prominence of global biennales and fairs. Closely tracking its ebbs and surges, she reports from studios, galleries, museums and exhibition spaces and has covered major Indian and international art fairs, museum exhibitions and biennales, including the Venice Biennale, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Documenta, Islamic Arts Biennale. She has also been invited to cover landmark moments in modern Indian art, including SH Raza’s exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the opening of the MF Husain Museum in Doha, reflecting her long engagement with the legacies of India’s modern masters. Alongside her writing, she applies a keen editorial sensibility, shaping and editing art and cultural coverage into informed, cohesive narratives. Through incisive features, interviews and critical reviews, she brings clarity to complex artistic conversations, foregrounding questions of process, patronage, craft, identity and cultural memory. The Global Art Circuit: She provides extensive coverage of major events like the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Serendipity Arts Festival, and high-profile international auctions. Artist Spotlights: She writes in-depth features on modern masters (like M.F. Husain) and contemporary performance artists (like Marina Abramović). Art and Labor: A recurring theme in her writing is how art reflects the lives of the marginalized, including migrants, farmers, and labourers. Recent Notable Articles (Late 2025) Her recent portfolio is dominated by the coverage of the 2025 art season in India: 1. Kochi-Muziris Biennale & Serendipity Arts Festival "At Serendipity Arts Festival, a 'Shark Tank' of sorts for art and crafts startups" (Dec 20, 2025): On how a new incubator is helping artisans pitch products to investors. "Artist Birender Yadav's work gives voice to the migrant self" (Dec 17, 2025): A profile of an artist whose decade-long practice focuses on brick kiln workers. "At Kochi-Muziris Biennale, a farmer’s son from Patiala uses his art to draw attention to Delhi’s polluted air" (Dec 16, 2025). "Kochi Biennale showstopper Marina Abramović, a pioneer in performance art" (Dec 7, 2025): An interview with the world-renowned artist on the power of reinvention. 2. M.F. Husain & Modernism "Inside the new MF Husain Museum in Qatar" (Nov 29, 2025): A three-part series on the opening of Lawh Wa Qalam in Doha, exploring how a 2008 sketch became the architectural core of the museum. "Doha opens Lawh Wa Qalam: Celebrating the modernist's global legacy" (Nov 29, 2025). 3. Art Market & Records "Frida Kahlo sets record for the most expensive work by a female artist" (Nov 21, 2025): On Kahlo's canvas The Dream (The Bed) selling for $54.7 million. "All you need to know about Klimt’s canvas that is now the most expensive modern artwork" (Nov 19, 2025). "What’s special about a $12.1 million gold toilet?" (Nov 19, 2025): A quirky look at a flushable 18-karat gold artwork. 4. Art Education & History "Art as play: How process-driven activities are changing the way children learn art in India" (Nov 23, 2025). "A glimpse of Goa's layered history at Serendipity Arts Festival" (Dec 9, 2025): Exploring historical landmarks as venues for contemporary art. Signature Beats Vandana is known for her investigative approach to the art economy, having recently written about "Who funds the Kochi-Muziris Biennale?" (Dec 11, 2025), detailing the role of "Platinum Benefactors." She also explores the spiritual and geometric aspects of art, as seen in her retrospective on artist Akkitham Narayanan and the history of the Cholamandal Artists' Village (Nov 22, 2025). ... Read More