Art in 2025: Practice, Memory, and Cultural Experience
In 2025, much of the art that stayed with us resisted immediacy. It did not seek urgency, visibility, or instant interpretation. Instead, it operated through duration, appearing in materials, gestures, performances, and public situations that unfolded over time or persisted through memory.
Across institutions and informal spaces alike, artists prioritized presence over spectacle and process over outcome. What mattered was not the singular event or object, but the conditions created for sustained engagement.
This article brings those encounters together. Not to catalogue them, but to reflect on what they asked of us. Patience. Proximity. Return. What follows is a considered look at art as it was practiced, remembered, shared, and sustained through gestures that trusted time enough to let meaning arrive on its own.
Qatar Museums CEO on Leadership, Legacy, and the Future of Museums
As Qatar Museums reached its twentieth year in 2025, the milestone was treated as a moment for strategic reflection rather than simple celebration. CEO Mohammed Saad Al Rumaihi emphasized that the past two decades have transformed the nation’s museums from isolated destinations into active cultural systems. Under his leadership, culture has been positioned as the central engine for national development and public life.
The year 2025 brought significant international recognition with Al Rumaihi’s election as President of ICOM Arab. This appointment reflects Qatar’s growing influence in museum innovation and heritage preservation across the Arab world. These global milestones coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the National Museum of Qatar, illustrating how the country manages to advance its future goals while remaining anchored in its historical identity.
The Qatar Museums ecosystem now extends far beyond traditional gallery walls. Through creative hubs like M7, the Fire Station, and Liwan Design Studios, the organization has become a space where culture is produced and sustained rather than just displayed. International collaborations with technology partners and global foundations have further expanded this role, allowing Qatar to act as a bridge between regional talent and the global stage.
Looking forward, Al Rumaihi views museums as dynamic agents of change. The focus has shifted toward participation and accessibility, utilizing digital tools to ensure that heritage remains relevant to younger generations. The message of the 2025 anniversaries was clear. The most important work of a museum is not to mark the passage of time but to remain a responsive and open platform for a rapidly changing society.
Rooted Nomad: Immersive Re-Encounter with the Art of M. F. Husain
Can the restlessness of M. F. Husain be captured in pixels and light without losing its edge? The Rooted Nomad at QM Gallery Katara answered this by rejecting the traditional retrospective format. Instead of a linear timeline, the exhibition used large scale projections and archival fragments to collapse decades of Husain’s practice into a single fluid experience.
Curated by Roobina Karode, the exhibition embraced Husain’s central contradiction of being deeply rooted in Indian civilization while remaining perpetually in motion. Myths, cinema posters, and his signature horses appeared and dissolved across the walls as interconnected thoughts. The immersive format functioned as a kaleidoscope where images overlapped and time folded in on itself, allowing viewers to sense patterns rather than simply consume information.
The exhibition deliberately avoided biography and controversy to focus on Husain’s visual logic. By placing multiple worlds within a single frame, the display moved between the ancient and the contemporary without hierarchy. This iteration carried specific weight in Doha, the city where Husain spent his final years. Rather than a final statement, the exhibition served as an atmospheric introduction to the forthcoming M. F. Husain Museum.
The Rooted Nomad mirrors Husain’s own refusal to settle into a single narrative. Images collide and disappear, echoing a practice that was never meant to be fixed or neatly framed. By resisting a final resolution, the experience asks the viewer to remain attentive to the constant flux where memory, myth, and movement reshape one another.
The Seduction of the Manganiyars: A Night at Katara
Desert music does not announce itself loudly. It arrives slowly, carried in breath, string, and rhythm. On a crisp October night at Katara, this quiet arrival became a focal point as The Manganiyar Selection unfolded as part of the cultural program surrounding the M. F. Husain retrospective. The performance brought the haunting sounds of the Thar Desert into sharp focus against the Doha night sky.
The staging by director Royston Abel utilized a dramatic grid of illuminated red cubicles. This design, inspired by both the Hawa Mahal of Jaipur and the glowing frames of global urban life, allowed each musician to be showcased individually before merging into a collective wall of sound. As the performance gathered momentum, the red boxes opened one by one to reveal a full chorus of vocalists and instrumentalists. This framing gave the audience space to notice the intimacy of single voices before experiencing the overwhelming power of their union.
The Manganiyars are a hereditary community from Rajasthan and Sindh who carry centuries of oral tradition. Their repertoire moves fluidly across religious and social boundaries, blending Sufi poetry with Hindu devotional forms and local folklore. What the Katara audience heard was not a polished reinterpretation but a living practice passed through generations. The music filled the amphitheater without the need for excess spectacle, relying instead on the raw energy of instruments like the kamaicha and the rhythmic precision of the khartal.
By the end of the evening, the performance stood out as one of the most affecting moments of the 2025 season. It was a reminder that some traditions do not require radical reinvention to remain relevant. They only need the right space to be heard. The Manganiyar Selection offered a visceral connection to the past, proving that the most profound architectural and cultural experiences often come from a place of deep listening and presence.
Museum for Indian-Born Artist M. F. Husain Opens in Qatar
Inaugurated by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the museum houses over one hundred and fifty works from the Qatar Foundation collection. The galleries move through Husain’s recurring preoccupations with myth, faith, migration, and cinema. Rather than a linear biography, the display acts as a map of his visual language, revealing how his thoughts evolved across decades and geographies. Several works on view have never been publicly shown before, providing an intimate look into his private creative process.
The heart of the museum is anchored by Seeroo fi al ardh, the final monumental work by Husain. Now fully integrated into the architecture of the building, this installation serves as an open gesture toward the shared future of humanity. Its presence ensures the museum remains a space of active thought rather than a static archive. The design avoids the trap of monumental spectacle, choosing instead to create a place for reflection and return.
The opening of this museum resonated because of its restraint. It does not attempt to provide a final summary of Husain’s life. Instead, it gathers his questions and unfinished thoughts into a space where his creative restlessness can continue to breathe. In a year of many anniversaries, the museum stands as a reminder that the most powerful architectural tributes are those that allow an artist’s spirit to remain in motion.
Subodh Kerkar: The Doctor Who Found His Calling in the Ocean
Subodh Kerkar is a doctor who famously traded the clinic for the shoreline. He is best known for a practice that refuses to stay still. Kerkar believes that skill alone does not constitute art. For him, technique is merely a language used to communicate a conviction or a message. This belief pushed his work away from the traditional canvas and into the open world, where art can breathe, disappear, and be experienced by everyone without barriers.
The sea is never a mere backdrop in Kerkar’s work. It serves as the primary material and the final author. His large-scale interventions on Goan beaches utilize shells, sand, flowers, and even discarded plastic to form temporary images. These works exist only until the next tide arrives. Kerkar embraces this disappearance as a fundamental truth. He often references a poem by Tagore describing how waves write poetry on the sand only to wipe it away and begin again. For Kerkar, impermanence is a sign of success rather than failure.
One of the most distinctive aspects of his practice is the performance installation. These works exist at the intersection of land art and community action. Kerkar directs people whose lives are tied to the water, such as local fishermen and laborers, to become part of the living work. Their physical movements mirror the ancient relationship between humanity and the sea. Kerkar views the ocean as a civilizing force that has shaped trade, belief systems, and cultures for millennia. His installations reflect this inseparability, showing coastal life as a delicate dialogue with the water.
Accessibility is central to Kerkar’s philosophy. He believes art should speak to the public before it speaks to institutions. This led to projects like the Carpet of Joy, where three thousand students helped transform one hundred and fifty thousand discarded plastic bottles into a vibrant field of flowers. These works are not meant to follow trends but to unsettle habits and soften rigid thinking. Kerkar believes that engagement with art can wash away fanaticism, leaving behind an experience that lingers long after the physical object has been reclaimed by the elements.
At The Kunj in Delhi, a space dedicated to the dialogue between tradition and luxury, the installation of 100 Sarees unfolded as a profound meditation on the architectural potential of fabric. Conceived by architect and artist Ankon Mitra, the work transformed handwoven garments into a suspended landscape of pleats and rhythmic folds. Mitra used the saree to bridge the gap between his philosophy of Oritecture and the ancient intelligence of Indian weaving.
The installation served as a pointed critique of modern luxury. For Mitra, true luxury is not a Western import but an indigenous concept rooted in the precision of a Jamdani thread or the complex geometry of a Pochampally weave. By elevating these sarees into a sculptural context, he sought to restore dignity to a craft often undervalued in the era of mass production. The project was executed under the direction of Shovna Pathak, whose orchestration of the studio allowed these hundred individual stories to merge into a single national fabric.
Mitra’s fascination with folding as a universal language found its most intimate expression in this work. Drawing on memories of his grandmother’s wedding sarees, he treated each piece of unstitched cloth as a vessel for history and emotion. The sarees were hung at varying heights to create a field of light and shadow, encouraging visitors to slow down and notice the manual labor embedded in every yard. This was not merely a display of clothing but a rhythmic tapestry of reverence for the hands that weave.
Wael Shawky and the Vision for Art Basel Qatar 2026
When Art Basel announced its expansion into Doha, the industry took notice. When Wael Shawky was named Artistic Director for the inaugural 2026 edition, the announcement signaled a shift in intent. Shawky’s vision for Art Basel Qatar is not built on scale or spectacle. Instead, it aims to rethink the fundamental role of an art fair within the Middle East, moving away from a traditional marketplace toward a site of deep cultural inquiry.
Hosted at M7 in the heart of Msheireb Design District, the first edition will replace the conventional booth model with a tightly curated format. Each participating gallery will present only one artist and a single project. This approach prioritizes clarity over excess and focus over volume. Shawky believes this shift is essential to bring the artist back to the center of the dialogue, ensuring that the work is not overshadowed by the commercial noise typical of global fairs.
The theme for the inaugural fair is Becoming, a concept that reflects societies in transition and identities reshaped by history and ambition. Shawky frames the fair as a vital component of a larger cultural cycle that includes education and institutional support. He argues that an art ecosystem remains incomplete without a professional market that operates with transparency and trust. His approach is informed by his own experience as an educator at MASS Alexandria and the Fire Station in Doha.
Art Basel Qatar is being positioned as a starting structure rather than an endpoint. It serves as a proposition to the region, asking if it is ready to sustain an art scene through shared responsibility between galleries, curators, and institutions. Success will not be measured by sales alone but by the fair’s ability to spark debate and provide emerging voices with a reason to hope for long term continuity.
LATINOAMERICANO at the National Museum of Qatar
Latin American art often carries a rare intensity, holding joy and grief within the same frame. When LATINOAMERICANO opened at the National Museum of Qatar, it brought this layered energy to the region at an unprecedented scale. Presented in partnership with the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, the exhibition served as a cornerstone of the Qatar Argentina and Chile 2025 Year of Culture. It gathered works that spoke of lived experiences shaped by resilience, struggle, and imagination.
The exhibition featured approximately one hundred and seventy works by more than one hundred artists, spanning from 1900 to the present day. Rather than following a rigid timeline, the galleries were organized into six thematic sections that explored identity, memory, and societal transformation. Visitors moved between iconic names like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and discovered contemporary voices addressing urban change and colonial histories. By displaying works from Malba alongside pieces from Mathaf and the future Art Mill Museum, the curators created a genuine dialogue between distant regions.
The curatorial approach led by Issa Al Shirawi and María Amalia García focused on exchange rather than simple display. This philosophy extended into the museum’s courtyard with Marta Minujín’s Sculpture of Dreams. This large scale inflatable installation invited the public to walk through a whimsical passageway, reinforcing the idea that art belongs in the communal spaces of the city. LATINOAMERICANO did not attempt to provide a final definition of a continent. Instead, it created a space for curiosity and recognition,
A Nation’s Legacy, A People’s Memory: NMoQ at 50
In October 2025, the National Museum of Qatar marked fifty years of documenting the story of a nation. The milestone was not presented as a fixed timeline but as an evolving archive shaped by people, landscape, and memory. The anniversary exhibition, A Nation’s Legacy, A People’s Memory: Fifty Years Told, traced the institution’s journey from its 1975 origins in the Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Palace to its current global status as a landmark designed by Jean Nouvel.
The exhibition highlighted how the museum has grown in parallel with the nation itself. Early photographs and personal stories revealed a history carried forward through everyday acts of care and donation. This celebration emphasised collective memory, honoring the families and individuals who have contributed objects and trust to the museum over the decades. By framing history as an ongoing dialogue, the museum positioned itself as a shared civic space rather than a sealed institution.
The anniversary celebrations extended into the city with a symbolic voyage of the historic dhow Fateh Al Khair along the Doha Corniche. This movement connected Qatar’s maritime heritage with its modern cityscape. Inside the galleries, contemporary interventions by artists such as Shouq Al Mana and Khalifa Al Thani reinterpreted archival materials and restored murals. These works allowed foundational moments in the museum’s history to be re-read through a modern lens, revealing how past visions of the future continue to resonate today.
The focus of the milestone remained on the importance of detail and the inclusion of younger generations. Contributions from students and youth-led programs ensured that learning remains a central part of the museum’s identity. The exhibition did not attempt to close a chapter on the past. Instead, it highlighted the museum’s role as a place for shared authorship, reminding the public that memory is something to be returned to repeatedly, with each visit offering a new perspective.
Nikhil Chopra and a Biennale That Chose to Breathe
For the 2025 Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Nikhil Chopra approached curation through the lens of performance. He prioritized slowness, attention, and the power of presence. Titled For the Time Being, this edition was imagined as a living organism rather than a fixed exhibition. It functioned as a gathering shaped by the movement of people, the shift in weather, and the slow passage of time.
Chopra differentiated the Biennale from the commercial logic of art fairs by framing it as a festival. He viewed the festival as an ancient human instinct, a way to mark a collective presence in a specific moment. Kochi provided the perfect landscape for this philosophy, with its deep histories of trade, migration, and resistance. The event did not arrive as an external imposition but grew organically from the rhythms of the city and its everyday life.
Rather than treating venues as neutral containers, Chopra embraced their physical reality. The exhibition occupied spaces where walls were marked by mold and floors were worn by centuries of use. These architectural conditions were not corrected or hidden. Instead, they were allowed to remain as active participants in the meaning of the work. Art entered spaces that were already alive and changing, creating a dialogue between the temporary installation and the permanent history of the site.
Accessibility was redefined through physical experience rather than verbal explanation. Chopra leaned into a language of bodies, shared meals, and sitting together. Many projects unfolded over long durations, with artists remaining on site to work daily. This made the processes of repair and conversation visible to the public. By resisting the urge to rush toward a finished conclusion, the Biennale allowed art to exist as a lingering presence that invited the audience to stay and listen.
Made in India, With Love: MeMeraki
MeMeraki began with a simple but urgent question. Why does Indian art feel admired yet remain so distant from our everyday lives? Founded by Yosha Gupta, the platform grew from the realization that while global audiences appreciated traditional craft, they rarely knew how to reach the master artists behind it. Gupta utilized her background in fintech to build a bridge between these centuries-old traditions and the modern digital economy.
The platform was designed to move beyond the traditional gallery model by connecting artists directly to homes, offices, and large scale public projects. Through collaborations with institutions like GMR Airports and Apollo Hospitals, MeMeraki has integrated folk art into the physical infrastructure of modern India. This approach treats traditional art not as a fragile relic of the past but as a disciplined and deeply relevant practice. By utilizing tools like digital storytelling and augmented reality, the platform helps patrons visualize how heritage can live within contemporary spaces.
During the lockdowns of 2020, MeMeraki transformed into a vital lifeline for rural communities. With physical markets closed, Gupta trained artists from regions like Raghurajpur and Madhubani to teach their skills directly via online workshops. These sessions did more than just provide income. They restored dignity by allowing artists to share the cultural context and spiritual stories behind their motifs. This shift proved that the future of craft lies at the intersection of heritage and technology, turning master artisans into empowered digital creators.
As the organization moves into 2026, it supports over five hundred artists across two hundred distinct craft traditions. The model ensures that scale does not come at the cost of authenticity. From affordable art kits to massive commissioned murals, every project is a tribute to regional identity. MeMeraki has demonstrated that preserving culture does not mean freezing it in time. Instead, it means creating a system where tradition can evolve alongside the hands that have always sustained it.
Haq Se, Govandi: Art as a Form of Resistance
Govandi is often defined by what it lacks. Situated in a marginalized suburb of Mumbai, the neighborhood is frequently associated with infrastructural neglect and systemic absence. The Govandi Arts Festival challenged this reductionist view by placing creative expression at the heart of community life. Founded by Natasha Sharma and Parveen Shaikh of the Community Design Agency along with architect Bhawna Jaimini, the movement began with a single mural bearing the phrase Haq Se, Govandi. These words evolved into a collective claim of pride and ownership.
The 2025 edition of the festival, held in December, demonstrated the power of a sustained cultural movement. Rather than a temporary event, the festival functioned as an ongoing mentorship program. Over one hundred local artists including youth, women, and transgender residents collaborated across diverse mediums such as rap, filmmaking, and textile arts. One notable highlight was a large scale tapestry depicting neighborhood life, which traveled to the Kochi Muziris Biennale. These projects allowed residents to surface their own histories with honesty and confidence, turning the streets into a site of emotional safety.
One of the most profound shifts occurred within the social fabric of the neighborhood itself. Parents who once viewed art as an impractical pursuit began to actively support their children’s creative paths. Streets that were once passed through quickly became vibrant gathering points where people stopped to talk and celebrate. The festival effectively reclaimed twenty-five thousand square feet of open ground that had previously been used for illegal parking and garbage. This space now serves as a permanent community commons for cultural gatherings and play.
The phrase Haq Se, Govandi remains a tool of resistance against the stigma often attached to the neighborhood. Groups like the rap collective Code 43 have used their music to challenge the need to hide their residential address when seeking employment or education. By centering the resident as the author of their own future, the festival proves that art is not an elite luxury but a fundamental tool for dignity. The real legacy of the work is found in the change of perception among both the residents and the wider city of Mumbai.
Tibian Bahari: Unraveling Identity, Soil, and Ritual in Art
Have you ever carried soil from one place to another as a promise rather than a souvenir? Earlier this year, SCALE encountered this powerful gesture in the work of Tibian Bahari at the VCUarts Qatar Gallery. Born in Sudan and shaped by displacement, Bahari uses soil, textiles, and printmaking to explore how land remains part of the body even when borders shift. Her work avoids abstraction, choosing instead to communicate through the physical weight and texture of the earth itself.
A recurring motif in her practice stems from an intimate family ritual. Each time she left Sudan, her mother or siblings would gather sand from beneath her feet. This act of care transformed into a foundation for her artistic language. Soil is treated as a material history that carries traces of place, loss, and hope. Her installation Al Attar extended this personal memory into a collective experience by using sand contributed by members of the Sudanese community. The work functioned as a quiet call for continuity rooted in ancestral practices passed down through generations.
Alongside her work with earth, Bahari utilizes textiles to trace the complex paths of migration. Fabric becomes a physical record of movement, while pigments derived from the land tie the human form back to its origin. Her work reflects the deep historical relationship Sudan has with cotton, labor, and global trade. By overlapping material and history, she shows how identity is often woven from the very resources provided by the land.
Rather than offering definitive answers about nationality or exile, Bahari’s work creates a space for reflection. She asks viewers to consider their own relationship to memory and movement. Through a combination of ritual and restraint, the work suggests that belonging is not always determined by a physical location. Instead, it lives in the stories and the physical elements we choose to carry forward with us.
Nour Shantout: Weaving Narratives Through Embroidery
Nour Shantout’s work at the VCUarts Qatar Gallery did not demand attention through scale. Instead, it invited a deeper engagement with time. Featured in the exhibition Ruins, Derelicts & Erasure, her embroidered pieces served as vessels for stories that are often overlooked. These narratives are not written in ink but are stitched slowly into cloth, transforming a traditional craft into a powerful tool for documentation and survival.
For Shantout, embroidery is a method of holding memory as a living record rather than as nostalgia. Drawing from her personal history across Damascus, Palestine, and Vienna, she highlights the lives of women whose histories exist in fabric rather than formal archives. Her work examines how displacement and quiet labor intersect. She focuses on the physical act of remembering through the repetitive movement of the needle, suggesting that memory is something built through consistent effort.
A significant portion of her research centers on Palestinian embroidery created within refugee camps. These works move away from the idealized garments found in museum collections to reflect a harsher reality. Shantout examines how scarcity and political pressure have fundamentally altered the craft. Silk is often replaced by cheaper materials, and traditional motifs shift to accommodate new surroundings. She views these adaptations not as a loss of culture but as evidence of resilience and life continuing under duress.
In series such as Searching for the New Dress and Love Poems, Shantout integrates maps and personal testimonies into her textiles. The garment is transformed into a document that carries the weight of geographic and emotional journeys. By trusting the viewer to sit with the work in silence, she allows the stitches to act as lines of evidence. Her resistance to erasure is subtle and patient, proving that history can be carried forward through the habits of the hand rather than the permanence of monuments.
Wusum Gallery Glows with Fields by Tarek Darwish
At Wusum Gallery, Fields marked the first and largest presentation of Tarek Darwish’s work since 1992. Bringing together an expansive body of pieces, many shown publicly for the first time, the exhibition felt less like a retrospective and more like a long-awaited release. The works filled the gallery with energy and openness, moving between control and freedom with quiet confidence.
What distinguished Fields was not only its scale, but the time behind it. Darwish had always approached art as a responsibility rather than a response to demand. He chose to work slowly, sharing only when the work felt meaningful and complete. This commitment shaped an exhibition that resisted urgency and invited careful looking.
The show unfolded across multiple series, from dense pencil drawings rooted in forests and nature, to works structured by grids, erasure, and rhythm. Music, movement, and repetition appeared throughout, creating a visual language that balanced order with play. Rather than directing interpretation, the works left space for viewers to find their own way through them.
Fields brought together work made over many years, without rushing it into conclusion. The exhibition made a simple point: clarity often comes from staying with a process long enough to let it speak for itself.
Artevo: Bringing Art Installations to Life in Doha
At Wusum Gallery, the exhibition Fields served as the most significant presentation of Tarek Darwish’s work in over three decades. Bringing together an expansive body of art, much of which had never been seen by the public, the show felt like a vital release of creative energy. The works occupied the gallery with a sense of openness, navigating the delicate boundary between disciplined control and total freedom.
What set Fields apart was the sheer depth of time embedded in every canvas. Darwish has long viewed art as a personal responsibility rather than a reaction to market demand. By choosing to work slowly and sharing his output only when it reached a state of internal completion, he created an environment that resisted the modern urge for speed. This commitment to duration invited visitors to engage in a form of careful, prolonged looking that is rare in contemporary gallery settings.
The exhibition unfolded through a distinct series that highlighted Darwish’s versatile visual vocabulary. Dense pencil drawings inspired by the complexity of forests sat alongside works governed by rigid grids and rhythmic erasure. Elements of music and physical movement appeared throughout the collection, suggesting a structural order that remained surprisingly playful. Rather than providing a single interpretation, the artist left enough space within the compositions for viewers to navigate the work through their own personal lens.
Fields gathered works created across many years without forcing them into a neat or final conclusion. The exhibition successfully demonstrated that clarity is often the result of staying with a process long enough for it to find its own voice. In a year defined by rapid change, Darwish provided a masterclass in the power of patience, showing that the most resonant statements are often those that have been allowed to mature in silence.
Yee I-Lann: When Hugs Become Language, and Mat Becomes Power
What does a hug leave behind once the bodies step apart. For Malaysian artist Yee I-Lann, a hug leaves behind a specific energy and a new form of language. In her exhibition at The Gallery at VCUarts Qatar, she explored how power and knowledge are held, suggesting that the most profound systems of governance often exist outside of traditional institutions.
In her Rasa Sayang series, Yee transformed the physical act of embracing into a visual alphabet. By removing faces from photographs, she turned arms and backs into letters formed by negative space. These works utilize complementary colors to simulate the vibrating energy of human touch, turning a simple gesture into a script for social repair. What began as a way to bridge divisions within Malaysia has evolved into a participatory archive that celebrates the quiet power of togetherness.
Yee’s research into colonial history identified the table as a primary symbol of authority and the organization of knowledge. She argues that colonization replaced local ways of knowing with rigid, hierarchical structures. Her response to this is found in the tikar, or the woven mat. Working with the Bajau Sama Dilaut communities, she presents the mat as a social architecture that spreads out and listens. Unlike the table, the mat is egalitarian and communal, representing a system where knowledge is passed through rhythm and shared labor.
At VCUarts Qatar, these concepts were brought to life through vibrant weaving and collaboration. The exhibition did not provide a set of instructions but instead invited a shift in posture. It encouraged visitors to move away from fixed hierarchies and toward a logic of shared surfaces. In a global landscape often dominated by rigid borders, Yee’s work suggests that power is at its strongest when it makes room for others and remains grounded in the communal act of listening.
The City as Host: The Return of the Kochi–Muziris Biennale
When the Kochi–Muziris Biennale returns, the shift in the atmosphere is felt long before any formal announcement. It settles into the daily ferry crossings and the café conversations of Fort Kochi. This is not merely a cultural spectacle but a shared condition that the city recognizes instinctively. Since its inception under Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu, the Biennale has treated Kochi as an active participant rather than a static backdrop.
By the time the sixth edition opened in December 2025, the city was already in motion. Spanning twenty-two venues including weathered warehouses, courtyards, and public squares, the event brought together sixty-six artists from over twenty-five countries. The 110-day journey blurs the boundary between the exhibition and the environment. This sense of collective ownership ensures that hospitality goes beyond logistics, as every resident becomes a host. At the inaugural ceremony, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan positioned the Biennale as a vital platform for plurality and a resistance to the homogenization of art.
Curated by artist Nikhil Chopra in collaboration with HH Art Spaces, this edition is titled For the Time Being. The framework resists the idea of a final product, choosing instead to prioritize friendship, process, and embodiment. The scale of major venues like Aspinwall House has evolved in this edition to favor performance-based works and durational practices. These installations unfold slowly, requiring visitors to stay and listen rather than simply consume an image. This non-commercial ethos was noted by author Arundhati Roy, who highlighted how the city and its architecture remain the true anchors of the experience.
As the months progress, Kochi does more than host the art. It absorbs and argues with it. The strength of the Biennale lies in its ability to belong to the people who inhabit these streets every day. Through an expansive program led by Mario D’Souza, the city transforms into a temporary site of learning and collective imagination.
End note
Across 2025, art was approached less as an object to be encountered once and more as a condition shaped by time, labour, and use. Many of the most compelling moments unfolded slowly or resisted resolution altogether. Artists, institutions, and communities prioritised process over immediacy, allowing work to exist in states of becoming rather than completion. Meaning emerged through repetition, participation, and sustained attention, rather than through declaration or spectacle. The projects covered by SCALE this year suggest that the industry is moving past the model of temporary, event-driven spectacles. Instead, there is a clear preference for creating permanent frameworks that support artist visibility and community engagement.
