Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025 – Niroj Satpathy, Naeem Mohaiemen, Mandeep Raikhy, Malu Joy
Continuing our coverage from this year’s 110-day celebration of art and artists in the southern Indian port city of Kochi (formerly Cochin)…
ANOTHER of the venues here is SMS Hall, in Mattencherry – just a bit further along from Aspinwall House and Pepper House (see our other video content) and one of some 20 core venues and another 20 or so transient sites, containing work which comprise Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025 (KMB 2025) from December 12-March 31 2026.
Among the artists here with work is Niroj Satpathy, whom we talk to about ‘Dhalan’ – described as “evoking the landfills’ restlessness and endows the refuse and its margninalised inhabitants with agency”. Watch the interview for more…
Here also is London-born Naeem Mohaiemen, whose ‘A Missing Can of Film’ for KMB 2025, charts the uncertain fate of war matyr Zahir Raihan. A fillmaker, his whereabouts shortly after the the war and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, remain unknown. Mohaiemen screens Raihan’s last known documentary in the style of the filmmaker, who was socialist in outlook and the film follows – as the KMB describes – “the stylistic coventions of Soviet Realism and the political commitments of Third Cinema” – art cinema forms that developed in Russia, in the 1920s onwards and in resistance and dissident movements that sprung up in the global South, often following decolonisation and independence, respectively. Mohaiemen’s deliberate juxtaposition has powerful contemporary resonances – most noticeably in the uprising in Bangaldesh itself, in 2024 – and in civil strife against ruling administrations in both Sri Lanka and Nepal, recently.
Mandeep Raikhy presents ‘Hallucinations of an Artifact’ (2023) bringing to life the 4,500-year-old 10.5cm tall bronze figurine of a ‘Dancing Girl’ found among the relics discovered in 1926 and representative of the culture of the Early Indus Civilisation and similar archealogical finds in the Mohenjodaro settlement (modern-day Pakistan). Jonathan O’Hear’s AI generated figure of the ‘Dancing Girl’ performing through the ages gives the work further power and an invitation to imagine a world not incomprenshible to our own, despite the epochal age gaps. Raiky performs with the two other dancers and the interplay between live performance – with the videos covering the walls, present an intriguiging and mesmirising assembly of thought, movement, play and even sublime seductiveness. “Central to the choreography is the ‘tribhanga’, a standing posture found in Indian classical dance and sculpture”.
Malu Joy (Sister Roswin CMC) drawns inspiration literally from her felllow nuns and the environment in which she finds herself. Drawings and terracota sculptures feature and form her contribution to KMB 2025. Among these works is ‘Mother I’ and and ‘Mother II’. “Joy’s artistic approach produces a psychological intensity that transcends realism, enunciating the subtle intricacies of human presence and condition.”
Also featured in SMS Hall is Gieve Patel, a painter (1940-2023 Mumbai) and his work, ‘Looking into a Well’ (2023) and ‘Embrace’ (2016).
Quotes are taken from Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025 ‘for the time being’ – and written by Arushi Vats (Mohaiemen), Aparna Chivukula (Raikhy), Stuti Bhavsar (Satpathy), Aswathy Gopalakrishnan (Joy), and Chivukla (Patel) again.
Sailesh Ram
Production credits for video
A Big Talent Media Production for http://www.asianculturevulture.com
Camera & editing: Natalie Barrass
Presenter/producer: Sailesh Ram (editor, acv)
Instagram (Mandeep Raikhy)
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSW_AJHAtoD/?igsh=emxvM3VzaGVxNGpm
