Programmes

The Art By Children (ABC) initiative develops the educational mandate of the Kochi Biennale Foundation and works primarily with children, but also with teachers and parents. ABC includes workshops in schools as part of the Art Room programme, special exhibition activities, including guided tours, for school-children during the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the internet-based Learning At Home programme and the annual summer camp in Fort Kochi.

Art Room is the principal programme of ABC. This workshops programme began with one school in Mattancheri in 2017 and has expanded to seven schools in Kochi and adjoining regions. Here, one room in each of the participant schools becomes a dedicated ‘art room’ available for children throughout. The art rooms are activated weekly by the ABC team through workshops for children. Also part of the programme is a community Art Room at Pepper House, which will be available for workshops for school-children from all schools in the Fort Kochi-Mattancheri region.

Supported by KNMA, Let’s Talk is a public conversation forum which contemplates and discusses art and cultural practices. Running throughout the year, it concentrates during the time of the Biennale exhibition. Around 40 talks and conferences are organised each year. Thinkers, artists, and scholars including Ashis Nandy, Bracha Ettinger, Paul Wong, Gautam Bhan, and Guerrilla Girls have spoken as part of the platform.

The Master Practice Studios programme is a series of workshops that provide interested practitioners the opportunity to work over an extended duration with senior artists and peers.  Artists get an opportunity not only to develop and reflect on their own individual practices, but also to learn practical and collaborative skills with the guidance of renowned names in the arts.

An Initiative supported by Tata Trusts, Supported by KNMA, KBF Video Lab is a space for experimentation and research through innovative video projects on contemporary art, artists, and art practices.

Pepper House Residency programme is an international residency opportunity for artists from all disciplines to work and collaborate within a studio space situated at Pepper House, Fort Kochi. The residency is structured on the idea of a three-dimensional approach to creativity in which the idea of artistic practice is supported by its two necessary extensions – public interaction and inquiry.

Artists’ Cinema, the film programme running parallel to the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, showcases art films, documentaries, and feature films from across the world in packages curated by filmmakers and film scholars.