IBA Stage: Kochi-Muziris Biennale 6 – Nikhil Chopra

Kochi-Muziris Biennale Curator Nikhil Chopra. Courtesy KMB Foundation

Kochi-Muziris Biennale 6 — Curator Nikhil Chopra

March 19, 2026 (Thursday)
4:00 PM (Kochi / GMT+5:30)

We are delighted to welcome Nikhil Chopra, Curator of the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, as one of the invited guests for the upcoming IBA Stage event dedicated to the Biennale.

An artist based in Goa, India, Nikhil Chopra’s practice spans live art, theatre, painting, photography, sculpture, and installation, often unfolding through durational performances that explore memory, landscape, labour, and embodied histories. His interdisciplinary approach has shaped an international career that moves between performance, visual art, and curatorial practice.

Chopra is also Co-Founder of HH Art Spaces, an artist-led initiative based in Goa that supports experimentation and collaboration across artistic disciplines.

His work has been presented internationally in major exhibitions and performances since 2005, including One Water, Many Lands at Gropius Bau, Berlin (2023) and Lands, Waters, and Skies at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019). Earlier projects include participation in documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel (2017), the 2nd Yinchuan Biennale (2018), and Sharjah Biennial 12 (2015).

Chopra has also presented performances and exhibitions at institutions and festivals such as Performa, New York, the 53rd Venice Biennale, and the Yokohama Triennale, as well as venues including New Art Exchange, Nottingham, Southbank Centre, London, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, and the Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai.

For the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, titled For The Time Being (12 December 2025 – 31 March 2026), Chopra has developed a curatorial framework that embraces process as methodology, foregrounding the concept of friendship economies and the idea of the body as a vessel carrying layered histories of labour, joy, and loss.

Bringing together 66 artists from more than 25 countries, the Biennale unfolds across 29 venues in Fort Kochi, Mattancherry, Willingdon Island, and Ernakulam, engaging the region’s rich cultural histories while opening conversations about collective memory, performance, and artistic exchange.

Through this edition, Chopra expands his artistic interests into the curatorial field, creating a biennale that invites audiences to reflect on embodied histories, shared narratives, and the relational networks that sustain artistic practice across time and place.

We invite you to join us on March 19 at 4 PM (Kochi time) as we hear directly from Nikhil Chopra about the vision behind For The Time Being and the curatorial processes shaping this edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

As with all IBA Stage events, the conversation will conclude with a Q&A session, offering participants the opportunity to join the discussion.

In order to register for this event follow this link.