Kochi-Muziris Biennale-2025: ‘Edam’ exhibition of Kerala artists begins

Kochi / December 13, 2025

Kochi, Dec 13: A day after the start of the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), the 110-day art festival opened a parallel exhibition that features the diverse art of Kerala, showcasing 36 artists/collectives at three venues at Mattanchery in the western part of the city.

KMB President Bose Krishnamachari and the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) Director of Programmes Mario D’Souza were present at the opening of the 109-day ‘Edam’, which got off at Armaan Collective & Cafe, and Garden Convention Centre on Bazaar Road. The event Cube Art Spaces will open next week.

Also present at the inauguration on the weekend evening were Edam curators Aishwarya Suresh and K.M. Madhusudhanan, besides the team of artists, including self-taught and 63-year-old Devu Nenmara, who is the oldest participant.

Edam, which has been conceived as a spectrum of ideas and thoughts as perceived by the artists of Kerala, will run till the end of KMB-6 on March 31, 2026, when KMB-6 by the KBF also concludes.

To Bose, this show will throw light “on the depth of the roots embedded in traditions, heritage and culture of the land”. All the same, it “inspired by other cultures across the world,” he adds.

According to D’Souza, the exhibition is an inter-generational dialogue that thrives in dialogue across time and medium, besides “productive dissonance as well”.

The participating artists, besides Devu, are: Abhimanue Govindan, Abin Sreedharan K P, Abul Kalam Azad, Anu John David, Arun B, Ashitha P H, Asna M A and Thasni M A, Devika Sundar, Dibin Thilakan, Greeshma C, Dr Indu Antony, Josh P S, Keerthana Kunnath. Keerthy R, Latheesh Lakshman, Madhu Kapparath, Madhuraj, Mehja V S, Murali Cheeroth, Sudheesh Yezhuvath, P.N. Gopikrishnan and Jayaraj Sundaresan, Nikhil Vettukattil, Nithya A.S, Priti Vadakkath, Radha Gomaty, Rahul Buski, Rajivan Ayyappan, Ramu Aravindan, Ranjith Raman, Sebastian Varghese, Shadiya C.K., Sibi Merlyn Abhimanue, Sonia Jose, Sreeju Radhakrishnan, Tom J Vattakuzhy, Umesh P K and Visakh Menon.

Edam was conceived in 2022 when the KBF reimagined the Biennale, to extend the platform for artist from Kerala. “We wanted to present a survey of contemporary art and ideas from across the state and its diaspora and spur conceptual thought and writing around it,” says D’Souza. This exercise led us across the districts, to villages, schools; to artists’ studios in kitchens and farms, and practices that had survived and thrived building its own ecosystems and on its own terms.”

Kochiite Aishwarya, who is a textile-based artist and art educator who works at the intersection of traditional weaving, experimental materiality, and contemporary art, says Edam facilitates an “inter-generational dialogue that thrives in dialogue across time and medium”. The 2025 edition highlights the “vibrant range of practices of artists who trace their roots to Kerala yet work across the world”, adds Madhusudanan, an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker whose works have been screened at film festivals, art galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) New York.

 ENDS

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