KMB 2025: Ancient Practices, Musical Instruments Transform into Art at Kochi-Muziris Biennale: Celebrity Visitors

KOCHI:
An array of celebrities from different walks of life, who visited the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB 2025), were effusive in their praise of artworks on display, saying their experience was uplifting and exhilarating while the city itself throbbed with incredible energy.

Australian film and television producer and Academy Award winner Emile Sherman said, “I noticed ancient craft and practices transformed into art. Artistic ways are challenging and connecting us to the world to experience things differently. I feel the expansiveness of India, the different regions and global south complementing some of the art I am used to seeing in Europe,” he said.

Being from filmdom, Sherman said he saw many great multimedia works, a movement of fine art into films with porous boundaries as artists are working wherever their interests take them.

“There were some powerful films and it was wonderful to pause and enjoy them in air-conditioned rooms. To feel the fabric of the city, experiencing different threads of cultures, history, ethnicity in Fort Kochi, the ancient buildings coming alive with interplay of works gives you energy even though you are not used to the heat,” he added.

Sherman, who is visiting Kochi and KMB for the first time although he had visited India several times in the past, said the energy of the ancient town of Fort Kochi was incredible and it replicated through the Biennale. “It’s flowing through the buildings in Aspinwall House from one immersive work to the next and in the venues I visited. It will take a couple of days to see all the works,” he noted.

For musician and Mohan Veena player Poly Varghese, KMB 2025 was a musical performance. “I could hear music in all the artistic works I saw in Aspinwall House, especially in Zarina Mohammad’s installation. I am seeing an installation with music instruments for the first time. Just as an artist and dancer interprets space, a musician interprets silence. And emptiness and silence speak a lot. I could connect with the works as I was interpreting myself through them— my aesthetics, politics, philosophy and more,” he said.

Pointing out to Dhiraj Rabha’s work on ULFA movement in Assam and the image of a village burning, he said, “KMB 2025 sends the message that the world belongs to all.”

Congratulations to the Kochi Biennale team for a wonderful and thoughtfully curated art exhibition. The works on display carry piercing and powerful messages, said Cochin Port Trust Chairman B Kasiviswanathan who visited Biennale venue.

The sheer imagination, dedication and hard work behind every painting and sculpture is evident. Each piece reflects a deep sense of passion, he added.
A good crowd thronged the venues on the last day of 2025.