KMB-6 Collaterals From Dec 14; Nine Institutes To Show Wide Range of Art Practices

KOCHI: 

The Collaterals programme of the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB-6) will feature nine institutes, showcasing a wide range of practices aligning with the key theme of the 110-day art festival beginning next month. Collaterals will start on December 14, two days after the start of KMB-6, according to Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF). Announcing the participating institutes/artists for its programme that will run parallel to KMB-6, the organisers said the venues will be spread across twin towns of Fort Kochi and Mattancherry.

KMB-6, which is slated to conclude on March 31, 2026, is South Asia’s largest new-art festival. Curated by Nikhil Chopra with HH Art Spaces, Goa, the sixth edition of the Biennale is organised by KBF, a 2010 registered non-profit charitable trust.

KBF Director of Programmes Mario D’Souza said the upcoming Collaterals has been “reimagined” vis-à-vis the earlier five KMB editions. “We chose to accept exhibitions through an open call,” he revealed.

The nine exhibitions the jury eventually selected were from more than150 applications, according to D’Souza. “We wanted the Collateral programme to represent an amazing diversity in art practices, while demonstrating the strength of our curatorial thought and presentations that challenged canons,” he said.

The Collaterals will exhibit surveys of pioneering abstractionist Shobha Broota and painter printmaker Naina Dalal, among others. Another highlight of the programme is visual artist Lakshmi Madhavan along with her Kasavu weaving community of deep-south Kerala.

Besides, there is ‘Like Gold’, a group exhibition by the Rizq Art Initiative and ‘Lilies in the Garden of Tomorrow’, which is a multi-element exhibition and research project by artist Sarah Chandy. Other presentations include ‘Monsoon Culture’, which is design-driven research studio founded by Aswin Prakash, and ‘Forplay Society’, an independent artist-led initiative known for its fluid and adaptive practice. Visitors will also encounter massArt’s presentation on the artistry of Kolkata’s festive Durga Puja, along with a moving image installation presented by the Goethe Institut of Max Mueller, Pune.

There is Delhi-based Ardee Foundation, which will feature Broota’s abstract paintings. Titled ‘The Lightness of Being’, the curator is Ina Puri. The exhibit will be in Mocha Art Café on Synagogue Lane of Jew Town in Mattancherry. 

While Seljuk Rustum and Andreas Ullrich with the main support of Bangalore-based Goethe Insitut will organise Forplay Society to form a representation of the highly-fragile contemporary approach of artists to a fast-changing reality and an exponentially growing complexity in all fields of life, culture and technology. Kochi-based Forplay founded by Rustum is an autonomous residency and community-driven experiment.

Gurugram-based Gallerie Splash of Jinoy Payyappilly will present Naina Dayal’s drawings, paintings and prints in OY’s Café on Burgher Street, adjacent to Kashi Art Café in Fort Kochi. The works, spanning over seven decades, reflect Dalal’s enduring engagement with themes of resilience, memory, and transformation, offering an intimate reflection on the strength of lived experience.

Lakshmi, who has spent years with the weaving community of Balaramapuram in Thiruvananthapuram district as one of the oldest kasavu (off-white and gold fabric) handloom centres in south India, will present ‘Looming Bodies’. This will be along with the Balaramapuram Weaving Community and the Handloom Weaver’s Co-operative Societies of Kottukal, Puliyoorkonam and Pulivila, besides the Kasthurbha Smaraka Vanitha Handloom Society. Looming Bodies, which traces the weaver’s body as an archive of endurance, repetition, and inherited memory takes shape in KM Building, opposite Pepper House on Calvathy Road in Fort Kochi. The work focuses on gesture over identity; hands and feet laboriously bound to the rhythm of the loom.

The non-profit massArt which promotes Bengal’s diverse art and culture by uniting visual, performative and literary forms on one inclusive platform will showcase the Puja motif in GRC Marine in Jew Town Road of Mattancherry. Led by culturally-rooted professionals, massArt fosters creativity, collaboration, and global visibility. Kolkata’s UNESCO-recognised Puja pandal tradition will be showcased in Mattancherry’s historic lanes. A collective of Durga Puja artists will craft site-responsive, material-sensitive pavilions, without religious icons, yet charged with their poetic energy.

Monsoon Culture, a design-led research studio and creative collective founded by Aswin Prakash, explores the intersections of craft, memory, and advocacy. His work, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, unravels the fabric that has clothed Malayali identity, which has policed Malayali bodies; new clothes stitched by the people, for the people’s gaze and on the backs of caste and colony. Aswin’s work will be exhibited in Monsoon Culture on Jew Street of Mattancherry.

Pipio, co-presented by Goethe-Institut, Pune, Max Mueller Bhavan, features a moving image installation, ‘a bird flies, a stone is thrown’ conceived as living tableaux, portraying performers suspended in a continuous ripple through time. Characters interchangeably assume the roles of witness, victim and perpetrator. The installation explores the politics of the body, its fragility, vulnerability and conformity. It will be portrayed in Forplay Society, Opposite Kaycee Corporation, Bazaar Road, Mattancherry.

Rizq Art Initiative (RAi), a social enterprise and independent art gallery fostering cross-cultural dialogue and supporting emerging and established artists world over presents ‘Like Gold’ (Ponnupole), engaging gold as both myth and material and exploring its transactional and transmutational nature. The title is drawn from a colloquialism in Malayalam that expresses the often-intense care and attention, both affective and material, lavished by a parent on their child, of sacrificial devotion and pampered excess. The work will be featured in KM Building, opposite Pepper House.

Lilies In The Garden Of Tomorrow’ (2025) by Sarah Chandy, an independent artist, is a multi-layered exhibition and research project, exploring one family’s story of resilience amid personal and political crisis in pre-Independence India through the diaries of Eliamma Matthen, a Syrian Christian from South India. Curated by Bakul Patki, bringing together archival research and new photo-performance works, it will be showcased in Arrow Mark on Jew Town Road, Mattancherry.