KBF Announces Co-curators for Students’ Biennale

KOCHI:
The Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) today announced the names of co-curators for Students’ Biennale, a key educational initiative of the Kochi Biennale Foundation for budding young artists. The programme works with state-funded art colleges across India, encouraging emerging artists to reflect on their practice and showcase their work on an international stage.⁠

The Students’ Biennale exhibition will open on 13 December 2025 and run alongside the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB). The largest contemporary art festival in India, the sixth edition of the KMB is scheduled to open on 12 December 2025 until March 31, 2026.

The programme is led by co-curators/collectives who will mentor students from over 150 institutions across seven regions of the nation. They engage with the students, shortlist the exhibition participants, and work closely with participating students to develop their projects for the exhibition in Kochi.

With emphasis on alternative education beyond the classroom and learning from practice, the event serves as a forum to foster fine arts education in the country.

Mario D’Souza, Director of Programmes, Kochi Biennale Foundation, said, “Each edition of the Students’ Biennale is a learning exercise. We work with students, educators, curators, and artists to understand the needs and shortcomings of art education in India.”

He added, “For this edition, we examine what other forms of nourishing practice are possible outside of the market and grant economy. We invited curators as peers, who could exemplify and share these “other” frameworks across independent artist-run initiatives, residency models, collective work, teaching, and self-publishing, amongst others. We aspire to build a peer group and artist-to-artist network that is concerned with the ‘now’. We want to learn together – about and with each other’s contexts and challenges. We want to listen.”

The co-curators/collectives for the seven regions are:

Savyasachi Anju Prabir, and Sukanya Deb for Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Gujarat, Goa, and Rajasthan; Dr. Sudheesh Kottembram and Dr. Seethal CP for Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh; Chinar Shah and Ashok Vish for Karnataka and Telangana states; and Kursheed Ahmed and Salman Basheer Baba for Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Ladakh.

Gabba, an artists-led space represented by Ritushree Mondal, Himangshu Sarma, Rabiul Khan, and Surajit Mudi, will guide students from West Bengal, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.

Anga Art Collective leads workshops in the seven north-eastern states and Sikkim, and Secular Art Collective, represented by Salik Ansari, Bhushan Bhombale, Shamim Khan, and Shamooda Amrelia, leads workshops in Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh.