The third edition of Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) will feature internationally-reputed writers, musicians and theatre-persons along with a host of visual artistes from across India and the world. Among them will figure iconic Chilean poet Raul Zurita, who was announced as the first artist at KMB’16 in December.
The upcoming biennale will host works by artists working across a range of media – in keeping with its mandate to broaden and blur the labels and lines attributed to art, according to KMB’16 curator Sudarshan Shetty.
“It is going to be an mixture of styles, schools and sensibilities,” said Shetty, long recognised as one of his generation’s most innovative artists.
Shetty was unanimously chosen as curator by an Artistic Advisory Committee appointed by the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF), which organises the Biennale. KMB’16 will be Shetty’s first curatorial project.
The largest event of its kind in South Asia, KMB’16 will run for 108 days from December 12 2016, to March 29 2017, and will comprise the main art exhibition and an ancillary programme of talks, seminars, workshops, film screenings, and music sessions across a range of venues in Fort Kochi and Ernakulam.
Talking about developing a project on this scale and his curatorial vision, Shetty said, “I see the KMB as naturally embodying and carrying forward the multiculturalism of Kochi that is nurtured by both history and myth. The Biennale creates a space for cross-cultural interactions – something that is a fundamental aspect of Kochi’s historical and mythical identity – and can also be viewed as a means of connecting the past and the present, without looking at them in binaries. It is important that we look at this Biennale as part of that larger flow (from the past) that comes down as a great waterfall to the present and flows through our contemporary realities and artistic practices in the form of many streams or rivers,” said Shetty, whose work was featured in the debut KMB in 2012.
“I see my role as the curator of the Biennale as tracing the trajectories of those streams. Incorporating this idea of the streams or rivers into my curatorial approach allows me to see the Biennale as a force and flow that continues beyond its own physical time frame and space.”
