The sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, “For The Time Being,” runs through March 31, 2026. Courtesy of Kochi Biennale Foundation

The Kochi Biennale, which launched in 2012, was not only the first Indian biennial of contemporary art but also the most politically engaged and socially critical contemporary art platform in the country, addressing some of India’s most pressing issues despite being the only major government-funded exhibition. As such, it has retained a distinct civic responsibility. Conceived by artists Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu with support from the Government of Kerala, the Kochi Biennale was modeled from the outset on large-scale international exhibitions like Venice and São Paulo while remaining rooted in the layered histories of Kerala’s port cities. Artist-led and experimental in ethos, the biennale is intentionally site-responsive, engaging directly with the historical fabric of the coastal city and its colonial past. It occupies heritage buildings, warehouses, godowns and public sites around Fort Kochi and Mattancherry, and places strong emphasis on public programming as an event conceived first and foremost for local people.

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Under the curatorial direction of Nikhil Chopra and HH Art Spaces in Goa, the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB)—which opened on December 12 and runs through March 31, 2026—unfolds across multiple venues in Kochi and features sixty-six artists and collectives from more than twenty countries. Titled “For the Time Being,” this edition brings attention back to the body, to our physical, sensorial and emotional experience of the world now, in the present moment, acknowledging the limits and possibilities of being human as the only perspective available to us. At its center is the notion of time understood from a purely human perspective. “The idea is that we measure our experience in the distance between heartbeats,” Chopra told Observer, emphasizing how, in a time defined by artificiality and synthesis, the biennale focuses instead on the physical dimension—our embodied presence and lived experience of the world.

“We’ve really placed the body at the center of our investigation—our understanding, our research, our way of thinking, working and being,” he adds, noting that the notion of “being,” both as verb and noun, anchors this edition. “The biennale wants to take stock of what it means to be present on this planet together. Even though we inherit collective histories and memories, and we speak of ourselves as a people stretched across time, landscapes and geographies, one fact remains: we are here now,” Chopra reflected. “We are contemporaries of one another in the present, and we share this moment. That sense of presence is one of the forces driving us.”

Here, the human body is understood as the only filter, site of encounter and witness to temporality as we confront the present world. For this reason, presence—physical presence, specifically—sits at the core of the show and shaped the criteria for selecting artists. “Whenever we visited an artist’s studio, or when I looked back at artworks I’ve encountered around the world, we were asking: can we feel the artist’s presence? Not........

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