Full list of artists for fifth edition

The fifth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale opens on December 12, 2022 with over 200 projects spread across heritage properties and warehouses, galleries and public spaces across Fort Kochi, Mattancherry, and Ernakulam on India’s southwestern coast. The central exhibition In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire curated by Singaporean artist Shubigi Rao, will run until April 10, 2022, featuring 90 artists and over 40 new commissions in historic Aspinwall House, Pepper House, and Anand Warehouse in Fort Kochi. 

Shubigi Rao states, “Returning after a gap of 4 years, the 5th edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale examines how we survive, through song, materiality, joy, humour, and through language, whether written, verbal, and oral. After the states of fear, trauma and uncertain limbo of the pandemic years, it may seem strange to call for joy. Where is this optimism? Perhaps we can sense it more tangibly in artistic and collective work, especially in regional or particular contexts and forms, of the artists gathered here, in this Biennale.  

These artists find their counterparts across the world, with work that includes questions like the possibly redemptive and revolutionary power of practice beyond the market. We see this reflected in growing investigative methods in cultural work that directly excavate and implicate the monetisation of everything—whether environment, activism, crisis, knowledge production and access, global capital flows and inequities. Our commingled virtual futures are not mere outcomes of the social isolation of the last two years. We are inextricable from the transmission of knowledge, ideas and capital, and so too are we subject to neoliberal infiltration and control. Implicated now is the concept of nation and inviolability of borders, a pernicious myth that denies the diffusion of languages and ideas, of storytelling and sharing. Grief, anger, resistance and story are all present here. We can be messy in our attempts to remake or reshape our world in our struggles for equity, but rather than inchoate, these are nonconformist compositions, songs of new making. In the face of capriciousness and volatility, against all odds, this Biennale thrums with the power of storytelling as strategy, of the transgressive potency of ink, and transformative fire of satire and song.”

Full artist list for In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire
Ali Cherri (Lebanon/France), Allan Sekula (USA), Alper Aydın (Turkey), Amar Kanwar (India), Amol K Patil (India), Ana Hoffner (Austria), Anju Acharya (India), Anne Samat (Malaysia), Archana Hande (India), Arpita Singh (India), Asim Waqif (India), Basma Alsharif (Palestine/Germany), Biju Ibrahim (India), CAMP (India), Cecilia Vicuña (USA/Chile), Charles Chulem Rousseau (Guadalupe), Christine Sun Kim (USA), Claudia Martínez Garay (Peru/Netherlands), Colectivo Ayllu/Migrantes Transgresorxs (Spain), Debbie Ding (Singapore), Decolonizing Architecture (DAAR) (Palestine), Devi Seetharam (India), DISNOVATION.ORG (France/Poland/Canada), Elle Márjá Eira (Sapmi/Norway), Forensic Architecture (United Kingdom), Gabriela Löffel (Switzerland), Gabrielle Goliath (South Africa), Haegue Yang (Germany/South Korea), Hilde Skancke Pedersen (Sapmi/Norway), Homai Vyarawalla (India), Iman Issa (Egypt/USA), Ishan Tankha (India), Jackie Karuti (Kenya), Jason Wee (Singapore), Jean-François Boclé (Martinique Island), Jithinlal NR (India), Joan Jonas (USA), Johannes Heldén (Sweden), Joydeb Roaja (Bangladesh), Jumana Manna (Palestine/Germany), Ketaki Sarpotdar (India), Lawrence Lek (United Kingdom), Madiha Aijaz (Pakistan), Marcos Ávila-Forero (France), Martta Tuomaala (Finland), Massinissa Selmani (Algeria/France), Mekh Limbu (Nepal), Melati Suryodarmo (Indonesia), Min Ma Maing (Myanmar), Mithra Kamalam (India), Myriam Omar Awadi (Reunion Island), Nasreen Mohamedi (India), Nathalie Muchamad (New Caledonia/Mayotte), Neerja Kothari (India), Nepal Picture Library (Nepal), Philip Rizk (Egypt/Germany), Pio Abad and Frances Wadsworth Jones (United Kingdom), Pranay Dutta (India), Priya Sen (India), Priyageetha Dia (Singapore), Richard Bell (Australia), Rita Khin (Myanmar), Ruchika Negi and Amit Mahanti (India), Sahil Naik (India), Saju Kunhan (India), Samson Young (Hong Kong), Sandip Kuriakose (India/USA), Santhi EN (India), Seher Shah (USA), Shikh Sabbir Alam (Bangladesh), Shreya Shukla (India), Shwe Wutt Hmon (Myanmar), Slavs and Tatars (Germany), Smitha GS (India), Susan Schuppli (Canada/Switzerland/United Kingdom), Tenzing Dakpa (India), Thakor Patel (USA), Thao-Nguyen Phan (Vietnam), The Orbita Group (Latvia), Treibor Mawlong (India), U-ra-mi-li (India), Uriel Orlow (Switzerland/United Kingdom/Portugal), Vasudevan Akkitham (India), Vasudha Kapadia (India), Vivan Sundaram (India), Ximena Garrido-Lecca (Mexico), Yinka Shonibare (United Kingdom), Yohei Imamura (Japan), Zhanna Kadyrova (Ukraine), Zina Saro-Wiwa (USA/United Kingdom/Nigeria)

Besides the central exhibition the foundation will also host the 5th edition of the Students Biennale, Art By Children and a four-month schedule of Programmes.

“As we await you in Fort Kochi, for the 5th edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, we acknowledge change - a recalibration of our lives post the pandemic and at the foundation as we gear for another decade, having just turned 10 this year. We are optimistic, learning from Shubigi Rao’s vision for ‘In Our Veins flow Ink and Fire’ - of how artists navigate the realities of their conditions and hold hope with their creative intelligence and humour” notes Bose Krishnamachari, President, Kochi Biennale Foundation.

The Kochi Biennale Foundation is also pleased to announce the exhibitions invited as part of its Invitations and Foundation programmes. These include Toxicity by the Lubumbashi Biennale, curated by Picha; How to Reappear: Through the Quivering Leaves of Independent Publishing III presented by Kayfa ta (Ala Younis and Maha Mammoun); Tangled Hierarchy II curated by Jitish Kallat presented by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art along with Jitish Kallat’s installation Covering Letter; Geographies of Imagination: My Language is a Bedouin Thief, curated by Hajra Haider presented by Savvy Contemporary; Bhumi Community Art Project presented by the Gidree Bawlee Foundation for the Arts and Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation; Communities of Choice presented by Chennai Photo Biennale and Ffotogallery (Wales); William Kentridge: Oh, To Believe In Another World presented by the Office and Kochi Biennale Foundation; Shadow Circus: A Personal Archive of Tibetan Resistance (1957–1974), a project by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam in collaboration with Natasha Ginwala; Memories of Home presented by Kathmandu Triennale and Siddhartha Arts Foundation curated by Sujan Chitrakar and Spectres and the Sea: Notes from Muziris to the Indian Ocean, the Muziris Heritage Project, curated by Kochi Biennale Foundation.