kurimanzutto is pleased to announced the participation of the artist Akram Zaatari at Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018. The Kochi-Muziris Biennale seeks to create a new language of cosmopolitanism and modernity that is rooted in the lived and living experience of this old trading port, which, for more than six centuries, has been a crucible of numerous communal identities. Kochi is among the few cities in India where pre-colonial traditions of cultural pluralism continue to flourish.
This year Kochi-Muziris Biennale first exhibition are going to be complete with a programme of talks, seminars, workshops, film screenings, and music, taking place across a range of venues in Kochi over a period of three months.
The biennale is curated by eminent artist Anita Dube. Known for her politically-charged works, Dube has consistently challenged cultural norms and championed critical engagement across media. Her vision for the upcoming Biennale carries forward, at its core, a spirit of ongoing and decentralised collaboration.
Curatorial note
Virtual hyper-connectivity has paradoxically alienated us from the warm solidarities of community—that place of embrace where we can enjoy our intelligence and beauty with others, where we can love—a place where we don’t need the ‘other’ as an enemy to feel connected.
At the heart of my curatorial adventure lies a desire for liberation and comradeship (away from the master and slave model) where the possibilities for a non-alienated life could spill into a ‘politics of friendship.’ Where pleasure and pedagogy could sit together and share a drink, and where we could dance and sing and celebrate a dream together. In this dream, those pushed to the margins of dominant narratives will speak: not as victims, but as futurisms’ cunning and sentient sentinels.