For 20 years now, artist Nikhil Chopra and his personae have walked the planet, consuming, dressing, pondering, undressing, and sleeping like the remainder of us. Unlike most of us, their habitats have ranged from basements in Ohio and city squares in Havana, parks in Budapest and the meadows of Kashmir, prestigious museums in New York and Berlin to derelict warehouses in Kochi.
Yog Raj Chitrakar, Michelle, Black Pearl, Sir Raja and about a dozen extra: Chopra has slipped out and in of every character that’s been drafted as rigorously, mindfully and luxuriously (full with elaborate costumes and make-up) as the work (most frequently landscapes) that he creates over a number of hours, if not days, as them. Through his personae — as they search reconciliation, transformation, even transcendence in the parts that they replicate from reminiscence in charcoal, lipstick, crayon, oils, chocolate, slurry — Chopra has negotiated the fault traces of time, house and identification, reckoning regularly with historic flows of energy and channels of inequity. All this, whereas colouring inside the query at the core of all human expertise: the making and unmaking of the self.
Artist-curator Nikhil Chopra
Now although, the solely drawing he’s engaged on is the one stretched out on the partitions of his residence studio in Goa. And the solely persona that he has the wherewithal to domesticate is that of the curator — of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) 2025. “I am certainly thinking about playing curator as a performance, the rigour and endurance that one has to go through,” says Chopra, sitting on the deck of his model new residence in Aldona beneath a cover of palm timber glowing a spectral inexperienced in opposition to a monsoon sky. “I am very much seeing this biennale as a long durational performance piece.”
“Every biennale has had its own tone, its own context, its own incredible successes and also its failures. But everything in its nascency goes through difficulties. The biennale has done a lot of self-reflection to understand where its shortfalls were. And one of them was management — of not just people, but also of funds — because of wanting to put Kochi and India on the international art map. What Bose and Riyas did back in 2012 was take a giant leap. It was a debate and it was urgent, and it still feels urgent. The success of the biennale is in spite of its failures, and we’ll continue to do that.”Nikhil ChopraCurator, KMB 2025-2026
Lull by Anju Acharya (2022)
Of rigour and friendship economies
It is a few months since Chopra’s final efficiency, From Land to Fire, at the Glynn Vivian artwork gallery in Swansea — eight hours of dwelling in and on the Copperopolis, the historic nickname for the Welsh metropolis and a powerhouse of the Industrial Age. Weeks after that, he sat on stage at a Mumbai studio as the Asia Society’s Trailblazer for 2025, in dialog with up to date artist Jitish Kallat, discussing his explicit strategy to artmaking, whereas feeling acutely a sense of homecoming, and the enormity of this 12 months, which is his fiftieth.
“I looked around and saw so many familiar faces, and felt this overwhelming sense of gratitude and validation and recognition,” he enthuses, remembering his days in Mumbai in the early years of the millennium, a metropolis he left round 2012 resulting from the rising value of dwelling and declining house to create, for Goa, the place he was drawn to a straightforward tempo and non-competitive nature of life. “This obviously drove the point home, that nothing can or should be done on your own.”
Nikhil Chopra at Asia Society’s Trailblazer
That conviction in neighborhood has outlined extra of Chopra’s follow than is straight away apparent — particularly since his return from a transformational residency at the Freie Universität, Berlin in 2012. Behind the scenes of the performer-painter putting out solo has been a cavalry of lifelong collaborators, together with costume designer Louis Braganza, and photographers Madhavi Gore and Shivani Gupta. Gore and Gupta have additionally been elemental to the creation and persevering with operation of HH Art Spaces, the Goa-based artist-run motion that Chopra began in 2014, alongside French artist Romain Loustau — and which is on the banner as curator for this version of the Kochi- Muziris Biennale.
“At HH Art Spaces, we’ve been looking at artists that are engaged in process,” says Chopra. “We do residencies, we run studio spaces — we are really engaged in their way of manifesting their ideas into not just stuff, but into experiences.” It’s why, says Chopra, considered one of the most vital elements of what they’re taking a look at [for the KMB] is the presence of the artist in their very own work. “We’ve really leaned upon this idea of labouring over one’s craft, a practitioner’s relationship to rigour with material.”
A stairwell with Scottish artist Jim Lambie’s paintings Zobop (2022)
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images
“Nikhil’s interrogation of colonial and local, public and private, mask and wearer, is what makes him a trailblazer in contemporary South Asian art. His profound belief in communities is embodied in his practice too, and I can’t wait to see his curatorial vision come to life at the upcoming Kochi-Muziris Biennale — which is an essential part of not just the global art calendar but public life. It [KMB] is a microcosm of cross-cultural dialogue; it integrates art and public spaces in a way that invites everyone to explore art freely and unselfconsciously. It lives up to it’s reputation as the people’s biennale.”Inakshi SobtiCEO, Asia Society India Centre
Inakshi Sobti
Chopra and crew have additionally enshrined collaboration of their strategy — by way of what he calls “friendship economies” in the curatorial observe for this version, coming collectively beneath the theme For the Time Being. “We do not create in isolation,” he explains. “We create together. And when we create together, an artist’s practice, in a sense, creates an ecosystem around that practice.”
He’s additionally eager about the sustainability of a neighborhood, “of quite literally putting food on the table,” he provides, mentioning one other phrase from his curatorial observe: “scaffolding”. “Because at the end of the day we recognise that what we do is artistic and promotional, but it’s also professional, and there are various economies that are connected to it. We are going to work with this feeling of love, trust, solidarity, camaraderie, coexistence in our shared politics, for where we think the world should be — as the engine and as the fuel.”
What to count on in Kochi
A dynamic biennale: “We wanted to deflect this idea of the finished biennale,” says Chopra. “I don’t necessarily feel the need for it to be this static museum experience. It has to be a shape-shifting, metamorphic experience that people can have.”
Keeping the circumstances of Kochi in thoughts: “We don’t want to fight against them, because the harder you fight those conditions, the more they trouble. So we’ve invited people who know how to work in those conditions — high humidity, derelict spaces, there may be a leaking roof somewhere.
The body of Kerala: “We’re thinking about Kerala not just as a place, but as a place with physicality, with features, driven by the elements earth, wind, fire, water. How do we situate our practices in this incredibly dense place, not just ecologically and physically, but also historically, in the imagination of people? This is a culture that’s still alive with traditions that were alive 5,000 years ago. We’re trying to be as aware of that context as possible.”
Artist Anne Samat’s set up Cannot Be Broken and Won’t Live Unspoken (2022)
| Photo Credit:
Thulasi Kakkat
A smaller biennale?: “We’ve made some things smaller — the number of artworks that require shipping in from abroad, works overly reliant on technology, works that are too delicate and need a lot of air conditioning. But the number of venues has grown, there are new sites and spaces,” Chopra says. “While the number of invitations that have gone out is only about 70, the number of collaborative practices within those is increasing. A lot of artists are occupying a larger footprint in these spaces. So if anything, it’s bigger.”
The world is invited: “I hesitate to use the word Global South because I find it extremely problematic but we’ve invited artists from countries on the other side of the economic hemisphere. Of course, South Asia is important to us, but so is Southeast Asia, South America and the African continent. Even from the United States, we’ve looked at voices that are on the margins. And then from India, we’ve invited a lot of very young, new, fresh, unseen talent. They know these conditions because it’s home ground and a young artist has a lot of tenacity. So we’ve invited them out of their little studios in Baroda, Ahmedabad, Shantiniketan, Assam, Kolkata, Patiala.”
Visitors at the final version of the on Kochi-Muziris Biennale
| Photo Credit:
Thulasi Kakkat
Art as gentle energy
Where the world is, is after all a completely different query. On the one hand is the perceived menace of AI on the artwork world — like the whole lot else. But, to Chopra, an artist sending in a grammatically right proposal is just not the identical as an artist letting expertise do the heavy lifting. “We talked about that when the Internet came around, when large servers were running these machines for us. We’ve questioned our relationship to technology from an ethical place. But at the end of the day, we are crippled today without the Internet. So I don’t have an ethical issue with technology.”
On the different hand is artwork’s rising place as gentle energy round the globe — the UAE’s rising scene is a most seen instance of artwork’s place in geopolitics. “It’s definitely exploding,” muses Chopra, “but I think it’s also laundering people’s consciences. I feel like we do the washing of people’s souls. Even with the developments happening in Delhi, Mumbai, Singapore, it really does feel like we are placing contemporary art as a very valuable part of contemporary culture, just as much as music, cinema and various other forms of expression.”
Story behind the white
Over the years, KMB has had its share of artistic collabs. Like ‘Kochi Biennale White’, a customized gallery white developed by Asian Paints together with artists Riyas Komu, Bose Krishnamachari, and Sudarshan Shetty. The versatile color had no undertones and was used, and nonetheless is, throughout the Biennale’s exhibition areas to offer a impartial but deep backdrop for the artworks.
The Indian artwork world, particularly, seems to be in a boisterous section, fuelled by an elastic calendar of festivals and festivals and projections about appetites that appear to go in just one path: up. But Chopra’s been right here earlier than, on condition that his personal coming of age coincided with Indian up to date artwork’s final huge growth in 2007-08. “We occupied large museum spaces, like the Centre de Pompidou in Paris, Serpentine in London, the Mori Museum in Tokyo,” he remembers. “A lot of us would be talking to each other about how the scene in India is only going to change if India becomes an exciting venue for international art, and a site for an international artist to come and create an exhibit. I think Riyas [Komu] and Bose [Krishnamachari] felt that in Kerala, and I felt that here in Goa.”
“When you compare the Kochi Biennale to international ones, it falls short because they don’t have the funding to bring down many international artists. More international names make an international biennale. While including tech and new media is the prerogative of the curator, we can’t ignore the big new trends. It’s important to pick the mood now, which is either activism/politics or new tech. We go to different ends of the world to see it, so why can’t we have it here? Why should we not let our artists and audiences, who don’t know where to go [to see these works], see it right here.”Sharan ApparaoFounder-owner, Apparao Galleries
Sharan Apparao
If that interval was the crucible wherein establishments similar to the Biennale and HH Art Spaces have been cast, he’s optimistic about this second, with its rise of institutional patronage, for one purpose. “This is also a way of creating a critical mass of people who can find an important place for contemporary art in their lives.”
On the sidelines
Every version of KMB sees a number of collabs and fringe occasions. This 12 months, ‘The Ishara House’ is one such. With Riyas Komu as its inventive director, and designed by the artists and lecturers of Aazhi Archives, the venture (separate from KMB) will embody a curated exhibition titled Amphibian Aesthetics, in addition to public programmes and initiatives. The exhibition, with new inventive commissions spanning South Asia, the Gulf, Africa and past, will study how migration has traditionally facilitated complicated confluences, underlining the function of maritime trade in shaping society, energy and resistance.
At Kashi Hallegua House, Jew Town
Role of the artist
If the artwork world at massive is evolving quickly, his personal relationship with artwork making has modified too. “I didn’t really think I had a studio-based practice. My studio was my place for me to chill, think, write, read, research, but it was never really a space for me to rehearse, draw, paint, work,” says Chopra. “My Berlin experience that led to me coming to Goa made me realise that it’s very important for me to have a corporeal relationship with my practice if I am to continue my relationship to performance.”
“Since its inception in 2012, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale has served as a platform for artistic expression in our country, with no commercial value attached to the artworks. Over the years, it has faced its share of challenges and has been a learning curve. I am honoured to be a platinum sponsor. We are all looking forward to the upcoming Biennale curated by Nikhil Chopra, which promises to be more streamlined, inclusive and thought-provoking.”Sangita JindalChairperson, JSW Foundation
What maybe stays unchanged, in Chopra’s thoughts, nonetheless, is the function of the artist in a tumultuous world. “It’s like the idea of India being a spiritual country is still quite prevalent in the West. And this projection of exotic India, internationally, is really bothersome,” he says. “We’re not the most spiritual country in the world. We’re not the most yogic. We’re not the biggest vegetarians. Actually, our diets are pathetic. Our relationship to religion is warped. Our relationship to spirituality is bling. And there’s more hatred and anger in India today than I’ve ever seen.”
“So what are we talking about?” he continues. “I guess voices of contemporary artists become a way for people to have a critical engagement with the place. And that’s the work we’re doing: blurring between states, people, gender, class, caste, culture, sexuality, identity. We are those people and we create those spaces, where you can come and feel safe and really express yourself. Have a cry, and we will cry with you.”
The author is an unbiased journalist based mostly in Mumbai, writing on tradition, life-style and expertise.
Expected footfall: 1 million
This will all the time be a People’s Biennale and each customer is inspired to ‘sponsor’ it in a roundabout way, says Thomas Varghese
Thomas Varghese, CEO, Kochi Biennale Foundation, who comes with in depth worldwide expertise — a stint with the United Nations included — desires to place the “local in the global” this time. He reiterates that this can all the time be “the People’s Biennale”. Between Aspinwall House (the portion owned by the authorities) and Anand Warehouse, greater than 20 venues shall be activated in December, with Bastion Bungalow being the web site of the Pavilion.
Entry is by way of a “sponsorship receipt of ₹100-₹150, instead of a ‘ticket’ to be consistent with the ethos of the People’s Biennale”. Of the ₹30 crore finances, ₹7 crore has been introduced by the authorities as help. There are additionally 5 confirmed Platinum Benefactors, as a part of a new programme to offer funding to the Biennale and to strengthen the Foundation, however CSR grants and native sponsorships are inspired as nicely. More from Varghese:
About working with native manufacturers.
We have been participating this time with the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) Kochi Refinery, which has a robust base right here, to contribute to the native tradition of the metropolis by way of the Biennale. We are additionally taking a look at naming a few of the venues after corporations that wish to are available in as a sponsor. Also native members similar to David Hall and Pepper House are on board as they consider these occasions are vital to the historic facet of the metropolis, moreover serving to with tourism.
Thomas Varghese
Starting with a clear slate.
I’ve labored in a number of locations however the scale and complexity of this initiative is humongous. It is vital to create a semblance of order and techniques that undergird the Biennale. There is a lot that is occurring, with artists, facilitators, donors, venues, and the authorities, all to be related to the matrix. With reference to pending funds, we have now managed to scrub the slate from the previous, systematically. All the funds have been made and there aren’t any distributors left ready. Moving ahead we wish to be sure that wherever we have now signed a contract, we’ll honour that.
Open name to collaborators.
The merchandise retailer is open for collaboration as is the cafeteria. I’m trying to embody Kochi Kudumbashree [the state-sponsored women empowerment programme] so it’s inexpensive and accessible. We are usually not simply looking for attendees from different States and international locations however native walk-ins too. We had 800,000 guests final time and expect a million over 4 months.
— Rosella Stephen
“[In this edition] we’re strengthening collaborations with patrons and establishments, nurturing partnerships with governments and communities, and embracing innovation in how artwork
is introduced and skilled. More importantly, we’re dedicated to creating an ecosystem the place artists really feel supported and audiences really feel related. I count on to come across artwork that challenges my perspective, sparks conversations throughout cultures, and celebrates the distinctive spirit of Kochi [and] the method the metropolis itself turns into the canvas. I hope the Biennale is not going to simply showcase works of brilliance but in addition foster moments of pause, reflection, and connection in a world that so urgently wants them.”Shabana FaizalEntrepreneur, philanthropist, and vice chairperson of KEF Holdings
Shabana Faizal
‘The challenge is to build durable partnerships’
V. Venu, chairperson of the Kochi Biennale Foundation’s Board of Trustees, on guardrails and classes learnt
Key classes from the first version to now.
The main learnings over the final 5 editions is that we have now to create a strong framework that can help the Biennale. This would imply creating a small skilled crew that works on the occasion full time; enlist artwork lovers, philanthropists and organisations that present common funding help; and persuade the neighborhood and metropolis establishments to ‘own’ the occasion.
Guardrails for a premier artwork occasion similar to the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.
The biennale is a publicly funded occasion; the Board of Trustees are custodians of this public belief. It is vital to be clear. As a vital a part of the funding of the Biennale comes from the authorities, it’s incumbent on us to take care of meticulous accounts and be topic to audits. The second: to talk to the artwork neighborhood and turn out to be its voice. The occasion has to take the further effort to be an inclusive house.
V. Venu
Funding has all the time raised robust questions.
Every occasion of this nature finds it difficult to boost enough funds. While acknowledging that the monetary help of the authorities has been the mainstay of the occasion, it should even be remembered that the help will be sporadic. The problem is to construct up a number of sturdy partnerships and minimise bills. An vital partnership that we have now not been in a position to obtain until date is participation and funding help from the Kochi Corporation and the local people. In main artwork occasions, it’s the enterprise neighborhood that comes ahead to offer monetary help.
The function museums and artwork centres play in society.
Art centres are crucial areas for expression, exploration and exhibition. They present a platform for rising artists and each metropolis advantages from their creation and upkeep. Museums can be dynamic areas, taking part in a important function in the cultural scene of the neighborhood. At KMB, we have now showcased fascinating areas as vibrant venues for exhibitions, and this time our spotlight is the Bastian Bungalow, a protected monument of the Archaeology division and an vital venue for our programmes.
— Surya Praphulla Kumar
Elsewhere, textiles speak
During the final version of the Biennale, 35 designers confirmed at One Zero Eight, considered one of Fort Kochi’s newer trend addresses. With names similar to Ujjawal Dubey of Antar-Agni, Aneeth Arora of Pero, and Karishma Shahni Khan of Ka-Sha collaborating, ‘Colours of Resilience’ was a trend venture curated by Himanshu Shani of 11.11/Eleven-Eleven to “establish the humble khadi in a high fashion space”. The newest version will share house with a different programming that can embody a showcasing of multidisciplinary works, conversations, and masterclasses throughout the Biennale’s 110 days. Another key occasion: the launch of the world exhibit, Patterns of Love, curated by textile artist Odette Blum and writer-curator Sharon Drijanski.
An embroidered work by Italian artist and illustrator Annalisa Bollini
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy @p.a.t.t.e.r.n.s.of.l.o.v.e
It will deliver collectively 15 world textile artists in a collective exploration the place artwork turns into a bridge between instances, cultures, and sensibilities.
At the One Zero Eight
The Kochi-Muziris Biennale is scheduled to happen from December 12, 2025 to March 31, 2026.
