‘Inspiration, not means, drives creation’: Meet the first non-Indian curator of Kochi Biennale

VENICE: The Kochi-Muziris Biennale has proclaimed its next conservator: the French-Algerian creative person Kader Attia testament be the number one non-Indian to lead India’s only such event.Attia, who curated the Berlin Biennale in 2022, won France’s prestigious Marcel Duchamp prize in 2016, and is currently showing at the Venice Biennale for the second time, will curate the seventh edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), in 2027-28. (The sixth edition recently concluded, having been held from December 2025 through March 2026.)The announcement was made by Jitish Kallat, on behalf of the Kochi Biennale Foundation, on the sidelines of the Venice Biennale’s pre-opening events, on Friday.Attia, 55, has works in permanent collections at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London, and the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York. Among his most notable works is Ghost, a large installation featuring hundreds of kneeling bodies wrapped in aluminium foil, highlighting themes of community silence and socio-political erasure. Born to Algerian parents and raised in France and Algeria, his works tend to investigate the impact of western modernism and colonialism on non-Western cultures.HT spoke to Attia moments after Friday’s announcement, about his ideas for the next edition of KMB, his views on the evolving role of art, and his love for Kochi.Discussing what excites him most about his new role, Attia said, “I think I can sum it up in one word. The Kochi biennale is the future.” Having shown there as an artist in 2014, and delivered a lecture there in the recently concluded edition, he added that a biennale that invites artists to be curators in every edition, year after year, as KMB does, “has understood everything about the role and the essence of a contemporary art event”.“I believe, for instance, that the challenges we live amid today, whether political or logistical, can be more easily discussed between an artist who is a curator and a participating artist. It takes both artistic sensibility and flexibility to appreciate difficult contexts and adapt to economies of means. I come from a family where there were not a lot of books and art materials,” he added (Attia’s father was a construction worker; his mother was a homemaker), “but I used to build my own toys. I think creation is not connected to means but to inspiration.”In a public address he made as part of the announcement event in Venice, Attia had said that one of the reasons he was excited to take on the role of curator was because of his love for Kochi. What is it he loves about the city?“It’s amazing how you have the direct feedback of the local population as an audience at KMB,” he told this reporter. “In many biennales, after the opening days, you may not find many people attending. But Kochi gets a lot of viewers throughout its duration. I am heartened to see so many families with young children come here too view and engage with contemporary art. It tells you that the team behind the biennale has built something enduring.”Kochi as a city also has an incredible porosity of culture. As there is in certain cities around the world — Rome, London, Delhi, Venice itself — there is a great ongoing, and ancient, cultural exchange with the world, Attia pointed out. “The energy there is incredible. I admire how secular and layered it is.”As for his plans for the biennale itself, the artist said he would like the context to be the multiculturalism of Kochi and its multi-layered accumulation of influences from around the world. “As a port city, constant movement has shaped the city too, over centuries. I would build the event up from this foundation.”He is also cognisant of the need to invent a new art language. “The world is changing very fast and we must assess these changes fairly. So, I would say — though I do love technology, when it is used rationally — that the problem of technology should be addressed as well,” he added.The biennale could address and discuss, with honesty, other challenges of our time too. “After all, there are few arenas in society where one can present new ideas in a subtle way, and art is one of them; a vital one,” Attia said. “That is the focus of my practice and would be one curatorial lens through which to view KMB.”(Riddhi Doshi was reporting from the Venice Biennale, which opens on Saturday and will run through to November 22)