The Kochi Biennale Foundation has announced the full roster of artists set to participate in “For the Time Being,” the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. This year’s event will be curated by Indian artist Nikhil Chopra and HH Art Spaces. Opening on December 12, 2025, and running through March 31, 2026, the biennial will present 66 artists and collectives, including Marina Abramović and LaToya Ruby Frazier, from over 20 countries.
Inaugurated in 2012, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale is South Asia’s largest contemporary art event and the first biennial established in India. It spans multiple cultural sites across Kochi in the state of Kerala, including Aspinwall House, Pepper House, the Island Warehouse on Willingdon Island, 111 (KVJ Building), Durbar Hall, and Space, the former Indian Chamber of Commerce.
This year’s lineup features a number of artists from the region, including leading Indian names like Gulam Mohammed Sheikh and Gieve Patel, alongside others from around the globe, including Moroccan artist Hicham Berrada and Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama.
“Our invitation to companions was to work with Kochi’s climates, conditions, and resource realities; to make time, think nimbly, and collaborate locally,” the curatorial team said in a statement.
Around 50 new commissions will be created for “For the Time Being.” Many of them will be developed in collaboration with local communities and installed in first-time venues throughout Kochi. “We draw from the past editions and their lives, and continue to see the exhibition as a growing organism constantly nourished by ideas, emotions, and actions,” the statement continued. The curators also acknowledged the need to “hold space for grief and mourning” during what they describe as a “transformative time.”
The fifth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale featured 90 artists and over 40 new commissions when it returned in 2022 after a four-year gap due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The full list of artists participating in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025 is as follows:
