Kochi: In the initial days of his visit to Fort Kochi as the newly-appointed artistic curator of the third edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Sudarshan Shetty was at a restaurant with his family when an autorickshaw driver walked up to him and struck a conversation about his interaction with international artists in the first two seasons of the contemporary art extravaganza.
“He had made friends with artists from around the world. Before leaving, he asked me if I needed some suggestions on South American artists for inclusion in the biennale…. Weeks later, as I was trying to understand the place, he took me to an old avenue and introduced me to his friend, who owned a grand old Kerala-style house and a cycle shop. It was a humbling experience, the place is innately egalitarian, equalising everyone,” Mr. Shetty recalled at a briefing on the biennale, which gets under way on 12/12/16.
His curatorial concept for the coming edition was also shaped by his experience in the issue-ridden debut edition. “Works, including mine, were still being installed when the biennale opened, and I felt a bit uneasy about not being able to complete my work on time. But then the people chipped in to support us all. It is truly a people’s biennale that way,” said Mr. Shetty, adding that his role therefore would be more of a facilitator than a creator in the new edition.
Another question that shaped the curatorial concept pertained to his thought as to whether the idea of tradition is akin to that of a stagnant pool or like a stream in motion, marked by dynamism.
Riyas Komu, secretary of the Kochi Biennale Foundation and director of programmes, outlined the grand canvass of the biennale, from the time of its inception back in 2012 to the multifarious entity that it has become. The upgrade of the Durbar Hall into a world-class art museum with climate control provided a great start. Ever since, the biennale made social-political interventions, architectural interventions, made public art, interacted with history and archaeology, changed people’s perception of art and created an audience for contemporary visual art, he explained. If the opening edition saw the participation of 89 artists from 23 countries, the coming edition, which will last around 108 days, will have 97 artists from 31 countries.
It will be a layered fiesta, with theatre practitioners, installation artists, musicians, poets, cartoonists, painters, performers, sculptors, muralists, and writers taking part in it, he added.
Students biennale
Besides the main biennale, there will be a ‘students biennale’ comprising works of 450 students from 54 art institutions across the country, curated by 15 young curators, artists’ cinema, the history now series of workshops and the art by children segment. The biennale continuum is attained through ongoing programmes such as Pepper House Residency, an artists exchange programme from next year onwards, a young artists’ residency programme, the arts and medicine event, master practitioner studios, and assistance to young visual artists by helping them cut a work at the newly-installed video lab.
Branding of auto rickshaws under the ‘ARTO (auto rickshaw tour) Rickshaw’ project incorporating 100 auto drivers, a ready pool of art interpreters, publicity posters featuring ordinary people and a children’s guide to the biennale are the latest additions in the forthcoming edition.
A host of luminaries, people’s representatives, writers, artists, and government officials took part in the briefing.
