Nikhil Chopra, Curator of KMB 2025 Brings “For the Time Being”

The Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) has, in just over a decade, become one of the most important platforms for contemporary art in the Global South. Set against the layered histories of Kerala’s port city, it has been called both a festival and a journey by the curator of this season of the Biennale, Nikhil Chopra, a gathering that is as much about people and politics as it is about art. Every edition reframes what the Biennale could mean for its audiences, from the intimacy of storytelling to the scale of global representation. By Sindhu Nair

The 2025 edition of Kochi Muziris Biennale takes place under the curatorship of artist and performer Nikhil Chopra, along with HH Art Spaces as the curators of its sixth edition, who title this edition For the Time Being. Known internationally for his durational performances that stretch across hours and days, Nikhil brings his embodied sense of time, presence, and process into the Biennale’s ecosystem. For him, Kochi is not simply an exhibition site but a living, breathing community, an intersection of histories, resistance, and festivity.

SCALE sat down with Nikhil to explore what For the Time Being means, how he envisions accessibility and participation, and what audiences can expect across the 110 days of this edition of the Biennale.

SCALE:  How important is it to have an art festival in a state like Kerala?

Nikhil Chopra: An art festival is essential, but first I want to say that I think in terms of festivals rather than fairs. Festivals are innately human. Since the earliest times, when we sat in caves around fires, we have been festive, telling stories, mourning the dead, celebrating victories, invoking the gods, looking up at the stars in wonder at our smallness in the vastness of existence. A festival recognizes the simple but profound truth that we are alive, that we are here, and that we are here, together.

Kerala, of all places, embodies why a festival is necessary. It is a state where cultures, religions, and histories have collided and melded into each other. From Greek and Roman connections in the second century BCE, to trade with the Arab world, to maritime exchanges across the Indian Ocean with East Africa, to the violent colonial encounters with the Portuguese, Dutch, and British, Kerala has absorbed all of these while maintaining its soul, something ancient, unmovable, and unshakable at its core.

Here, culture itself has been a form of resistance. The way people eat, the way they talk, the rituals they follow, everything carries within it centuries of survival and adaptation. Even religion, when it arrived, was absorbed and incorporated into the Malayali way of being. This is why Kerala remains one of the most educated states in India, a place where socialism, communism, and ideas of collective strength are still alive in public discourse.

And importantly, this is one of the only states in the country that has set aside funds for a contemporary art festival. That is not just progressive, it is precious. It shows a recognition that festivity, critical thinking, and art-making are worth supporting at the state level. That must be celebrated and sustained.

SCALE:  You describe this edition as a “living ecosystem” rather than a singular spectacle. What does that mean?

Nikhil Chopra: When I use the phrase “living ecosystem,” I mean it at many levels. First, the venues themselves, Aspinwall, Pepper House, Anand Warehouse, they may look derelict and silent, but they are alive. Time and weather are making its mark on them. Mould creeps across the walls, plants push through cracks, architecture and landscape blur into one another. These buildings are microbial, breathing, always shifting.

So, when we place art inside them, it is not about hanging a static picture on a wall. It is about acknowledging the life that already exists in these spaces. Behind every object is a breathing, aging, shifting, evolving soul and it is that recognition of life that makes the Biennale a throbbing, pulsating ecosystem.

We also live in a time when images are digitised, when AI can generate pictures faster than any hand. Our relationship to images is becoming detached from the living act of making. I want the Biennale to remind us of the specialness of presence, the way only human beings can occupy and charge a space.

The Biennale will not be a static spectacle but a fluid organism. Some works you can touch, some you can sit on, some you can taste or smell. Artists will bring their bodies into the spaces for durational works. Studio and exhibition will merge. It will be like air and water: immersive, enveloping, alive.

SCALE: How are you ensuring that KMB 2025 is accessible across language, cultural, and social divides?

Nikhil Chopra: Language is often misunderstood. We think of language as words, spoken or written, but there are other languages. The language of the body. The language of the face. The language of a handshake or an embrace. The language of sitting down to eat together, or the language of making eye contact. These need no words. They need awareness.

So, for me, it’s not about English, Hindi, Malayalam. These are colonial impositions in many ways, and they create barriers. I would rather blur those boundaries. Silence can sometimes speak more profoundly. Breathing together in a room can create connection beyond words.

This Biennale will demystify what it means to be an artist, a curator, or an institution. It will break the hierarchy of intellectual jargon.

We want the Biennale to be readable, approachable, experiential. If a work does not communicate, it has failed. The Biennale must speak through presence, not just through words.

SCALE: What highlights or experiences should audiences look forward to in 2025?

Nikhil Chopra: I can share some of the experiences. One project is a repair shop where you can bring any broken object, from glasses, slippers, a watch, even an old cassette player, and have it repaired. This is all about memory and healing.

Another work sets up a parliament chamber with empty chairs, open for anyone to use. You could debate politics, host a community meeting, or even celebrate a birthday with friends there. It is about reclaiming space for dialogue and gathering.

There will also be durational works, artists present in the space every day of the Biennale, creating, performing, making. You will witness process, not just product.

This edition of the Biennale has more women than men. We have strong representation from Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and of course a strong presence of Malayali artists. Many international artists are established globally but have never shown in India. Many Indian artists are young, unseen, fresh voices.

I’ve leaned heavily on friendship networks, artists I’ve met on travels, worked alongside, shared meals with, built trust with. They are people who know how to work in difficult conditions, who won’t be fussy about humidity, fungus, or the impermanence of materials. That’s important in Kochi. The Biennale will thrive on ecologies of trust and collaboration.

SCALE: The title “For the Time Being” suggests impermanence. Yet your curatorial statement emphasises continuity. Was that contrast intentional?

Nikhil Chopra: Yes, it was intentional. “For the Time Being” acknowledges who we are. We are not Venice, not Basel, not Sharjah, not Dubai. We are Kochi. We must accept ourselves for what we are, without aspiration to be elsewhere.

Time itself has always been a material in my practice. The present is the only truth we know. Birth and death are the absolutes. The past is fiction, a story we tell ourselves. The future is fantasy, something that never arrives. All we truly have is the Now.

So “for the time being” is about presence. In this moment, we are. And in being, we are also becoming. The Biennale must embrace process, flux, incompleteness. It must acknowledge that we live, we create, we perish, and in between those absolutes, we are here, together, now.

SCALE: Previous curators regretted not involving locals enough. How will this Biennale connect with the common man?

Nikhil Chopra: First of all, I don’t want to assume who the audience is. To assume is to limit them. Art must communicate across boundaries. We will not shroud ourselves in mystery or hide behind intellectual jargon. We must begin by recognizing ourselves as common people, as artists, curators, volunteers, neighbours, workers.

Kerala, in my experience, values acknowledgment. A smile, a word, a thank you, these small gestures matter. I know this from my own childhood, when I went to school in Kerala, and later in Bahrain and Dubai where my classmates and teachers were often Malayali. Many of my mentors and guides in art school came from Kerala. They taught me that respect and acknowledgment are vital.

So, at this Biennale, I want everyone involved, from the rickshaw driver who might not know the word “Biennale,” to the workers who lift and wire installations, to the wealthy patrons who arrive by jet, to feel seen and respected. This is about flattening hierarchies.

Even my curatorial team reflects this. I am not a singular curator. We are a collective, an art movement, we are nine of us together at HH Art Spaces from Goa. We work together, band together, deflect the idea of central authority. That itself is a message: that this Biennale belongs to all of us, not just to one figure.

SCALE: How do you see the Biennale in today’s political climate?

Nikhil Chopra: We live in difficult times. India is volatile, precarious, vulnerable. Populist politics makes it harder and harder to be liberal, critical, queer, alternative, or experimental. Protest and dissent are under threat. Consumerism and technology numb us.

That is precisely why the Biennale must exist as a safe island. It must be a space where we can breathe, where we can be free, where we can have difficult conversations, wear what we want, say what we want. It must resist being swallowed up by the ocean of politics.

This is not escapism. It is about survival. The Biennale must be an act of resistance, of creating a fragile but vital ecology where one can be what we want.

SCALE: You are an artist stepping into the role of curator. How does that change your perspective?

Nikhil Chopra: I carry my sensibility as a performer into this role. For me, time, process, and embodiment are essential. They shape how I think about curation. I want the Biennale to be alive, to be durational, to be present.

But this is not just about me. I curate from friendship, from trust, from networks built over years of working with other artists. I have leaned on colleagues I met across the world, people I broke bread with, people who helped me install my work as I helped with theirs. That friendship economy is what sustains this Biennale.

And I also step back. I am part of a team. We flatten hierarchies. We work collectively. That is new for me, to not just be the artist at the centre of the work, but to share authorship with a whole ecology of people. That, too, is part of the living ecosystem we are trying to build.

SCALE: What will give you a sense of satisfaction at the end of KMB 2025? And what legacy do you hope this edition leaves?

Nikhil Chopra: Satisfaction for me will come from seeing the Biennale alive with people. Not just artists and patrons, but neighbours, workers, children, the curious. If they feel ownership, if they feel the Biennale is theirs, that will be enough.

As for legacy, I hope this edition emphasises process over product, presence over spectacle, and friendship over hierarchy. If we can leave behind a sense that the Biennale is a living ecosystem, not a closed exhibition, then I will feel it has done its job.

Images Courtesy Kochi Muzris Biennale