Kochi Biennale names French-Algerian artist Kader Attia as curator of seventh edition
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The Kochi Biennale Foundation on Friday announced internationally acclaimed artist and curator Kader Attia as the curator of the seventh edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, with the announcement being made in Venice by Biennale President Jitish Kallat at a special event organised by the Foundation.
Attia, whose artistic practice has long traversed the intertwined terrains of memory, colonial history, repair, and cultural inheritance, was selected by a committee chaired by Kallat and comprising artists, curators, and cultural figures, including Shilpa Gupta, Pooja Sood, Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, and Rirkrit Tiravanija, among others, while the seventh edition of the Biennale is scheduled to open in December 2027.
Born in Dugny, France, in 1970, Attia is widely recognised for a multidisciplinary body of work that moves between installation, sculpture, film, archival research, and philosophical inquiry, and his practice has consistently reflected upon the lingering wounds of colonialism as well as the possibilities of collective healing and cultural repair.
As curator of the forthcoming edition, Attia will now begin an extended process of research and dialogue aimed at shaping the conceptual and curatorial framework for the 2027–2028 Biennale, with Kochi serving as both a historical point of departure and a site of wider contemporary conversations.
Welcoming the appointment, Kallat said the committee had been drawn to the poetic range and generative potential of Attia’s proposal, which, he noted, offered a flexible curatorial framework capable of bringing diverse artistic practices, histories, and publics into meaningful relation within Kochi. He also recalled Attia’s earlier participation in the 2014 edition of the Biennale and expressed confidence in the ways his curatorial vision would unfold in the city.
Speaking after the announcement, Attia said he had long dreamt of returning to Kochi and building connections between the many-layered cultural influences embedded within the city, while adding that art and dreams possess the capacity to repair fractured realities and reclaim human imagination.
Chairperson of the Foundation Venu V said the appointment marked the beginning of a new artistic journey for what he described as the “People’s Biennale”, adding that the Foundation hoped the seventh edition would deepen dialogue between global artistic voices and local realities while remaining rooted in Kochi’s distinctive cultural fabric.
Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the first and largest contemporary art biennale in India, is organised by the Kochi Biennale Foundation, a non-profit organisation established in 2010 in Kochi. The Sixth Edition of the Biennale, curated by the artist Nikhil Chopra with HH Art Spaces, concluded on March 31, 2026. More details about the Seventh Edition of the Biennale will be announced in the coming months.