For the Time Being: Inside the Sixth Kochi-Muziris Biennale's Radical Reimagining of Art, Friendship, and the Living City

Running from December 12, 2025 to March 31, 2026, the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale reframes contemporary art not as spectacle, but as a living, breathing ecosystem.

Titled For the Time Being, the 2025–26 edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale marks a decisive shift in how large-scale art exhibitions imagine themselves. Spread across Kochi's historic port-city landscape, this Biennale is less about monumental statements and more about processes - of making, unmaking, gathering, and staying with uncertainty.

Curated by artist Nikhil Chopra in collaboration with the artist-run HH Art Spaces, the Biennale foregrounds what it calls friendship economies - modes of collaboration rooted in trust, time, and shared labour rather than institutional scale or spectacle.

A Biennale as a Living Ecosystem

At the heart of For the Time Being lies a curatorial refusal to treat the Biennale as a fixed event. Instead, exhibitions, performances, residencies, workshops, and conversations are conceived as interdependent parts of a shared ecology - exchanging resources, responding to weather, adapting to flows of people, and remaining open to change.

Bodies are central to this vision - as archives of time, labour, joy, fatigue, pleasure, and loss. The works unfold slowly, often resisting instant consumption, mirroring Kochi itself: a city shaped by tides, trade routes, colonial histories, migration, and ecological vulnerability.

This process-driven approach also marks a subtle resistance to global biennale formulas - favouring nimble collaboration, long-term engagement, and site-responsive making over polished spectacle. The approach stands among the most significant international cultural events reimagining how art is presented to the public.

Artists, Practices, and Plural Histories

The Biennale features 50 new commissions by 66 artists and collectives from over 20 countries, weaving together global practices with strong South Asian and local voices. Themes of decolonisation, migration, ecology, and embodied memory recur across mediums - from performance and film to architecture, sound, and ephemeral installation.

Among the participating artists are internationally recognised figures such as Marina Abramovi?, Tino Sehgal, and Ibrahim Mahama, alongside deeply engaged practitioners from South Asia and beyond.

The City as Exhibition Architecture

More than 22 venues across Kochi host the Biennale, turning the city itself into a layered exhibition space. Colonial warehouses, former courtrooms, port buildings, and public grounds become active collaborators rather than neutral backdrops.

• Fort Kochi - Aspinwall House (the main hub), Pepper House, David Hall, Parade Ground, Bastion Bungalow
• Mattancherry - Anand Warehouse, Mattancherry Hall, Synagogue Lane
• Willingdon Island - Island Warehouse and Port Trust buildings
• Ernakulam - Durbar Hall, the former Maharaja's courthouse

This dispersed geography encourages slow navigation, accidental encounters, and repeated visits - reinforcing the Biennale's resistance to linear consumption. The experiential approach echoes strategies seen in the most interesting immersive installations that transform spaces into active participants in the art experience.

Beyond Exhibitions: Learning, Listening, Gathering

The Biennale's ambition extends well beyond its main exhibition. Talks, workshops, film screenings, music, and live performances animate the opening week and continue throughout the season. Parallel initiatives such as the Students' Biennale, Art by Children, and artist residencies deepen educational engagement and local participation.

In a moment marked by global conflict and cultural anxiety, For the Time Being positions artistic freedom, care, and collective making as acts of quiet resistance. The emphasis on visual storytelling and spatial experience demonstrates the power of visual communication in creating meaningful cultural encounters.

A Biennale That Asks You to Stay

Rather than offering definitive statements, the sixth Kochi-Muziris Biennale invites visitors to linger - to sit with uncertainty, to move slowly through spaces shaped by history, and to experience art as something unfinished and shared.

It is not a Biennale that demands attention. It is one that rewards presence. Similar to other major Asian art events like Asia Now Paris Asian Art Fair, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale represents the growing significance of South Asian contemporary art on the global stage.