The forthcoming edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) is set to be a major art event in South Asia. Titled, ‘Forming in the Pupil of an Eye’, the Biennale will run for 108 days from December 12 through hree months till March 29, 2017.
The main art show held across four major venues such as Aspinwall House, Pepper House, David Hall and Durbar Hall apart, there will be talks, seminars, students’ biennale, the ArtBy children exhibition, workshops, film screenings, and music shows across these venues.
Blurring boundaries
In keeping with its curatorial vision, this edition of the Biennale attempts to question and blur the boundaries that categorise the various disciplines of artistic expression.
KMB 2016 will feature works by visual artists, poets, musicians and performance professionals from diverse cultural and artistic traditions, says a Biennale press note.
Noted artist and curator Sudarshan Shetty’s vision for the coming Biennale draws from mythical accounts of India as the ‘land of seven rivers’. The idea of streams flowing, converging and diverging underlies the curatorial questions that KMB 2016 will raise and the knowledge explored through the display and performance of the selected artworks.
“My curatorial approach started as a conversation between different forms and approaches to art practice. I see the Biennale as existing in process, something which flows, and I wanted to engage artists whose practices will create works that exist not only for the duration of the Biennale, but on into the time beyond,” says Mr. Shetty.
“My core curatorial question explores what tradition means, tradition being a motif I want to explore in this edition of the Biennale. We often talk about ‘tradition’ or ‘traditions’, and through my curation, I have aimed to address it from a fresh perspective,” he added.
