Biennale sees arrival of Kashmiris whose works figure in students’ segment

Kochi, Dec 20: The ongoing Kochi Muziris Biennale (KMB) features a set of works that displays no credit line other than an over-arching title: ‘Institute of Music and Fine Arts,Kashmir’. For, the exhibits are a result of collaborative efforts by a group of young artists who regenerated their creations that were damaged by the September floods of Kashmir this year.

Kashmiri students in a conversation with Curator Jitish Kallat 

Enter Mohammed Ali Warehouse in Mattancherry, and the visitor at KMB’14 Student’s Biennale is greeted by the visual aesthetics of the energetic and passionate artists upcountry, where the Jhelum river flushed in tragedy for people across the Valley.

The entry of these students into the second edition of the biennale here may sound even more magical. It took a Students’ Biennale curator from Kochi to select the entries after the institute under the University of Kashmir was closed down until March 2015. Subsequent support from helpful faculty members helped KMB officials reach out to the students and discuss the possibilities of regeneration, which eventually happened.

This month, it took four long days for the group comprising 10 students and a faculty to reach Kochi from Kashmir. Today, as they visited the main Aspinwall House venue of KMB’14 in seaside Fort Kochi, they expressed gladness for being in an artistic extravaganza.

“The Students Biennale is in itself a matter of pride for us,” said KMB’14 director of programmes Riyas Komu. “That it has included youngsters from a place as far as Kashmir is all the more interesting.”

Showkat Kadju of the faculty of Institute of Music and Fine Arts hailed KMB’14 as the “most magnificent” art show he had ever seen. “What is really surprising is the local participation in the biennale. It belongs to the people,” he added.

Appreciating Kochi Biennale Foundation for the “flawless” organisation, he said that giving students an opportunity to present their artworks alongside the contemporary stalwarts, it actually banishes the hierarchy that put artists into different classes.

Arya Ramakrishnan, a curator of Students Biennale, said the artworks from Kashmir represented reconstruction and re-birth. “Ethics drove me at the time of selecting art works from Kashmir. I tried to include maximum participants, deviating from the usual practice,” he added.

Bushra Mir, a student of the institute, said the floods destroyed all the portfolios of all the students. “But we consider it as a creative intervention from nature,” she said.

Added Saquib Bhat, another student: “The energy that KMB passes on to us will definitely have a positive influence on our future endeavours.”

Showcasing more than 100 works by art students from 37 government art schools in India, Student’s Biennale offers a powerful overview of the pedagogies and practices emerging across the country.  Fifteen curators have engaged with final year BFA and MFA students of art colleges to bring together the exhibition.

The exhibition spread over Mohammed Ali Warehouse and KVA Brothers in Fort Kochi has been conceived as part of Kochi Biennale Foundation’s ‘Higher Education Programme’ to create an alternative platform for students from Government-run art colleges in India to reflect upon their art practices and exhibit their works to a global audience.