“A biennale that breathes aliveness as much as liveness” -- that is how artist and performer Nikhil Chopra beautifully frames the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Chopra will curate the event in collaboration with HH Art Spaces, a spirited, artist-led collective from Goa, this year's edition.

Titled “For The Time Being”, this biennale will unfurl its petals on December 12, 2025, and will blossom for four months until March 2026 across the soulful city of Kochi, Kerala, with Aspinwall House as its epicentre.

“Aspinwall House will be one of the venues, but we have expanded to some other incredible spaces,” says the visionary founder of the biennale, Krishnamachari Bose.

“Kochi, if we talk about its size, is 4.5 sq. kms… we take a walk through from David Hall, Parade Ground to Mattancherry and also around the city. All these areas Nikhil will be activating. Each site is important and the biennale foundation believes in portraying the architectural sustainability, importance of value of heritage, etc., all are very important for us.”

This biennale is poised not merely as an exhibition but as a radiant constellation of creativity -- an ode to values that pulse at the heart of human connection: compassion, joy, humour, love, friendship, and solidarity. “I want to speak with the workers, the labourers, the union voices—those whose hands and hearts build our dreams,” says Chopra, who will make Kochi his temporary home for the next several months till the end of the event. An internationally celebrated multi-faceted artist, Chopra aims to infuse the event with presence and proximity, stitching bonds that span beyond gallery walls.

Expect a captivating contrast of silence and sound—paintings whispering from still walls while the primal beat of drums fills the air. The biennale will brim with performances, installations, seminars, workshops, and site-specific encounters sprawling over 4.5 square kilometres. Artists will journey between their studios and public spaces, blurring the line between creation and performance. “We long to dissolve the distance between the artwork and its witness,” Chopra explains. “We want to remove the veil of jargon and offer something tender, tactile, and open.”

Behind this symphony lies an epic orchestration. Months of preparation, coordination with hundreds of artists, and logistical ballet all come together under Chopra’s discerning gaze. Bose shares, “Nikhil is not only a phenomenal performer—he’s also a brilliant draftsman, sculptor, and installation artist. His versatility and depth made him our natural choice.”

This edition sheds the skin of a singular spectacle and reimagines itself as a living, breathing ecosystem—one rooted in friendship economies and collective evolution. The experience will ripple across Kochi through film screenings, the Students’ Biennale, Art by Children, and residency programs, each element woven into a shared tapestry of time, space, and spirit.

The Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025 invites the world not just to observe art—but to dwell within it, to move with it, and to be transformed by its infinite unfolding as Chopra puts it, “there will be three phases in the event, I am thinking of it like a script, like in as play – Act 1, Act 2, Act 3 – the entry will have to be with a certain amount of fanfare, drumming, summoning… there will be a lot to experience, a lot of liveness to the biennale. That liveliness will carry through the biennale and let the event breathe and grow as it has to for the next 110 days including one of our biggest and most important artist coming to do a performance and I will use that as a moment to create a series of performances in February. And in the end of March will be a well-articulated exit, ‘for the time being’… a gentle sort of fade out…”