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A new water metro turns Kochi-Muziris Biennale into mirror image of 'parent' biennale in Venice
Kochi-Muziris Biennale's new Island Warehouse venue and the water metro enhance visitor experience, connecting art enthusiasts to multiple locations.
With its centuries-old warehouse venues and surrounding water bodies, India's biggest contemporary art exhibition in Kerala's heritage town of Fort Kochi often comes close to comparisons with the world's first biennale in Venice, Italy.
The Kochi-Muziris Biennale, which was founded in 2012, is almost a mirror image of its 'parent', the 130-year-old Venice Biennale, sharing the strikingly similar features of an expansive sea and old giant godowns in both historical cities.
The Indian biennale, however, lacked the hallmark of the Venice biennale --- a vaporetto or water bus that worked the whole day to link art with art enthusiasts in the Italian city by transporting tens of thousands of visitors every day to the biennale venues.Not anymore. (Also read: Still in love with an old flame: Poonam Saxena writes on Sholay )
A new water metro, which connects the many islands in Kochi, has filled that one final void in seeking similarities between the Kochi-Muziris Biennale and the Venice Biennale.
The biennale visitors now have the choice of heading to the event's venues scattered over the islands of Fort Kochi and Mattancherry on the hybrid water metro, an environmentally friendly initiative by the Kerala government and the Kochi Metro Rail Limited.
Art and history
The electricity-run water metro is a speedier transport option compared to the long road journey from mainland Kochi, negotiating increasingly congested roads. Like the Venetian vaporettos, the Kochi water metro boats are fast and spacious and their jetties lie close to the biennale venues.
"Water is an important element when it comes to the biennale," says artist and Kochi-Muziris Biennale president Bose Krishnamachari, referring to the ancient sea route to Kerala for spice trade with the rest of the world. "Everything was connected to water because of the spice trade," he adds. "The water metro, therefore, is significant to the biennale."
The current edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, which opened on December 12 last year, is the first after Kochi Water Metro Limited launched its service to Fort Kochi, the primary biennale venue, in 2024. India's first water metro, the Kochi Water Metro, connects ten remote islands with the mainland and with each other, allowing art aficionados from Kochi's suburbs and satellite towns to visit the biennale venues.
"We're leveraging the public transportation networks," says Kochi Biennale Foundation CEO Thomas Varghese. " If it happens to be something in Venice too, that's only a coincidence," adds Varghese.
Arsenale of Kochi
The link between art and history in Kochi has received a further boost with the Kochi-Muziris Biennale opening a new venue in Willingdon Island, which is part of the Kochi archipelago.
The sprawling new biennale venue in Willingdon Island, called Island Warehouse, sits next to the new Kochi water metro jetty, which opened only two months before the inauguration of the biennale in December last year.
"The water metro to Willingdon Island opened at the right time," says Krishnamachari, the co-founder of the biennale. "We found a fantastic place belonging to the Cochin Port Trust, which helped us get it," he adds.
"The Island Warehouse is the Arsenale of Kochi," says Krishnamachari, explaining the new Willingdon Island venue's resemblance to Arsenale, the primary venue of the Venice Biennale, besides its other main venue, Giardini.
Founded in 1895, the Venice Biennale inspired many different versions of the contemporary art festival across the world, including in cities like São Paulo in Brazil, Shanghai in China, Gwangju in South Korea and Sydney in Australia. One of them, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, however, stood out for its many similarities with the 'parent' biennale.
Art in artificial island
A ride on the water metro from Mattancherry, also a biennale venue, to Willingdon Island takes only 12 minutes. The country's largest artificial island, Willingdon Island, was built in the early 20th century using earth dredged from the vast Vembanad Lake.
When it was completed in 1928, Robert Bristow, the British harbour engineer in charge of the mammoth undertaking, named it after the then British Viceroy Lord Willingdon.
The Willingdon Island, which is spread over 775 acres, soon etched its name in the country's maritime history, serving as a vital port in the South on the coast of the Arabian Sea. After Independence in 1947, the port grew in importance owing to the stature of Kochi as the starting point of the fabled Spice Route.
When the biennale opened last month, Willingdon Island, which receives large ships and cruise liners every day, welcomed industrial-size installations into one of its giant warehouses, all created by artists from countries like Sri Lanka, South Africa and Serbia. The island's only link to art before was a Maritime Heritage Museum in the former residence of Bristow, run by the Cochin Port Trust.
Old challenges, new beginnings
Recovering from a controversial previous edition in 2022, when over 50 participating artists published an open letter highlighting "organisational shortcomings" and "lack of transparency" following a delayed opening of the biennale, the new transport option for visitors and a brand new venue are aiding the event in restoring its brand value as a major global contemporary art exhibition.
It has also helped when Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama, one of the 66 participating artists selected for the biennale, curated by Goa-based artist Nikhil Chopra and artist collective HH Art Spaces, was named the world's most influential artist only a week before its inauguration.
Challenges still remain. Only a part of the biennale's main venue, the Aspinwall House in Fort Kochi, co-owned by the Kerala government and DLF, is available this year, curtailing the number of artworks at the main venue. The availability of another waterfront venue in Willingdon Island, therefore, has added another dimension to the choice of biennale venues.
"It seems the Island Warehouse has all the potential to become the main venue of the biennale," says Krishnamachari. "The arrival of the biennale in Willingdon Island offers tremendous opportunities for heritage conservation, urban renewal and creative economy," adds Varghese.
The visitors trickling into Island Warehouse seem to approve. "We just walked over, we are staying at the island," beams Jane Wong, an American art enthusiast who was visiting the Willingdon Island's biennale venue. Wong, a resident of California, adds: "I had missed the biennale when I was here in 2019. The event was over, and we saw the leftover street art."
"The warehouse's lighting design created a sense of tranquillity within its vast expanse," says Indu Ponnappan, who was visiting Island Warehouse with her 14-year-old son Jai. “It is a peaceful counterpoint to the scale of space.”
