Annual Report 2017-18 Annual Report st st Inveso Mundus (2015), AES+F, at Anand Warehouse, Mattancheri 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018 Contents 06 Introduction 08 Kochi Biennale Foundation 10 Board of Trustees 12 Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018 Curator 14 Kochi Biennale Foundation Programmes 22 Fundraiser Auction 24 CSR Support and Kochi Biennale Foundation 24 Meeting of The Board of Trustees 24 Constitution of Internal Complaints Committee 26 Audit & Accountability 48 Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016 Sponsors, Patrons & Supporters Front Cover: Parayi Petta Panthirukulam (2016), PK Sadanandan, at Aspinwall House, Fort Kochi 4 5 Introduction On behalf of the trustees of the Kochi replicated across India. Kochi Biennale The respected Indian artist Anita Dube Biennale Foundation, I’m pleased to Foundation is honoured by the trust was announced as curator for the 2018 present the annual report of the activities placed in us by the government of Kerala. edition of the Biennale. She has begun her of the organisation for the year 2017-18. research for the fourth iteration. Anita is This contains a summary of our activities We are an organisation founded by expected to travel to around 30 countries this year, as well as the audited balance artists, led by artists, and curated by outside of India for research and discussion sheet for the financial year. artists. Without support from the artists towards her exhibition. Given the nature community in India and outside, the of her art practice and her capacities as a I feel that the Kochi-Muziris Biennale Biennale would be impossible. They critical thinker in the art-world, I have no has raised the bar for public cultural have been with the Foundation from doubt that she will put together a strong and programmes in India. With its foundation the beginning, and have backed the provocative Biennale. We look forward very in the sense of adventure and critical organisation in its moral, creative, much to the next edition. disposition of contemporary art, the financial, programmatic and intellectual Biennale is now not just an occasion aspects. In 2017, almost 40 artists The biennial exhibition is, of course, our for seeing art, but also a place for donated works for fund-raiser auction for largest programme, but the programming discussions and provocations, for leisure the Foundation in Bombay. The details of of the Kochi Biennale Foundation is and contemplation, and for education and the auction are in the pages below, and continuous. The residency programme research. It’s a pleasure and an honour I’m extremely grateful to the artists for at Pepper House, our educational to see not only acclaimed artists and their contribution. programming including the summer camp curators, but also children, students, and for children and the Master Practice Studios generally people from all walks of life Several individuals and corporations workshops for young artists, and the Let’s visiting the Biennale. have come forward to support the Talk series continue under the leadership Biennale. Their generosity has been of Director of Programmes Riyas Komu. The fact that Kochi-Muziris Biennale has an important factor in the sustenance Preliminary steps towards the 2018 edition the government of Kerala as its principal and growth of the organisation. I thank of the Students’ Biennale have also been supporter makes it an interesting model all these individuals and organisations, undertaken. to be studied for cultural institutions in and I’m sure that we will continue to the country. We have received financial have their support. Kochi Biennale Kochi Biennale Foundation has been support from the State since the first Foundation is also privileged to count learning and growing with each passing edition in 2012. However, the Foundation amongst it supporters important cultural year. We are determined to build on and its activities remain completely organisations from within India and our achievements from this year, and I independent. This is an instance of the abroad. Their aid and advice is valuable anticipate a strong and creative future. recognition on the part of the government to us in building the institution and in of the significance of the work of such the expansion of our partnerships and Bose Krishnamachari cultural organisations, and it must be collaborations. President, Kochi Biennale Foundation 6 7 Kochi Biennale Foundation Kochi Biennale Foundation is a non- Mission Statement context to posit alternatives to political and the Indian people and local traditions, profit charitable trust engaged in promoting cultural discourses emanating from the practices and discourses that are shaping art & culture and educational activities in The Kochi-Muziris Biennale seeks to specific histories of Europe and America. the idea of India. These share a lot with India; primary amongst them the hosting invoke the latent cosmopolitan spirit A dialogue for a new aesthetics and the artistic visions emerging from India’s of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. KBF works of the modern metropolis of Kochi and politics rooted in the Indian experience, neighbourhood. The Biennale also seeks around the year to promote national its mythical past, Muziris, and create a but receptive to the winds blowing in from to project the new energy of artistic consensus on investment in contemporary platform that will introduce contemporary other worlds, is possible. practices in the subcontinent. art infrastructure and to broaden public international visual art theory and practice access to art across India.The Foundation to India, showcase and debate new The Kochi-Muziris Biennale seeks to The Kochi-Muziris Biennale seeks to was registered on 4-8-2010 under the Indian and international aesthetics and art establish itself as a centre for artistic explore the hidden energies latent in Indian Trusts Act, 1882. experiences and enable a dialogue among engagement in India by drawing from the India’s past and present artistic traditions artists, curators, and the public. rich tradition of public action and public and invent a new language of coexistence Kochi Biennale Foundation seeks: engagement in Kerala, where Kochi is and cosmopolitanism that celebrates the a. To promote art, culture and educational The Kochi-Muziris Biennale seeks to located. The emergence of Kerala as a multiple identities people live with. The activities in India; primary amongst create a new language of cosmopolitanism distinct political and social project with dialogue will be with, within, and across them the hosting of Kochi-Muziris and modernity that is rooted in the lived lessons for many developing societies identities fostered by language, religion Biennale on biennial basis and living experience of this old trading owes also to aesthetic interventions that and other ideologies. The Biennale seeks b. To organise national and international port, which, for more than six centuries, have subverted notions of social and to resist and interrogate representations art and culture exhibitions in India has been a crucible of numerous cultural hierarchies. These interventions of cosmopolitanism and modernity that c. To promote and support traditional art communal identities. Kochi is among are immanent in the numerous genres and thrive by subsuming differences through forms the few cities in India where pre-colonial practices of our rich tradition of arts. In a co-option and coercion. d. To promote art education through traditions of cultural pluralism continue world of competing power structures, it is schools and colleges to flourish. These traditions pre-date the necessary to balance the interests and The Kochi-Muziris Biennale seeks to e. To promote preservation of heritage Enlightenment ideas of cultural pluralism, independence of artists, art institutions, be a project in appreciation of, and properties and buildings globalisation and multiculturalism. They and the public. education about, artistic expression and its f. To use art for promotion of national can be traced to Muziris, the ancient relationship with society. It seeks to be a and international brotherhood and city that was buried under layers of The Kochi-Muziris Biennale seeks to new space and a fresh voice that protects co-operation mud and mythology after a massive reflect the new confidence of Indian and projects the autonomy of the artist g. To promote art for comfort and solace flood in the 14 th century. The site was people who are slowly, but surely, building and her pursuit to constantly reinvent the of the public in general and the recently identified and is currently under a new society that aims to be liberal, world we live in. disadvantaged in particular excavation. It is necessary to explore and, inclusive, egalitarian and democratic. h. To conduct national and international when necessary, retrieve memories of this The time has come to tell the story of seminars past, and its present, in the current global cultural practices that are distinct to 8 9 Board of Trustees Apex Advisory Council Bose Krishnamachari K V Thomas President Chairman, Public Accounts Curator \ Artist Committee, Government of India, Member of Parliament Riyas Komu Secretary M A Baby Curator \ Artist Former Minister of Education & Cultural Affairs, Government of Kerala Bonny Thomas Treasurer Honourary Advisors Writer \ Cartoonist Sunil V Adoor Gopalakrishnan Joint Secretary Auteur Executive Director, Anish Kapoor Motherland JV Pvt. Ltd Artist Tasneem Zakaria Mehta P K Hormis Tharakan Trustee Honourary Director, (Former) DGP, Kerala Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum (Former) Secretary (R), GoI Jose Dominic Shashi Tharoor Trustee Member of Parliament Managing Director, CGH Earth K J Sohan Lizzie Jacob Former Mayor of Kochi Trustee (Retd.) Former Chief Secretary, Artistic Advisory Govt. of Kerala Committee 2018 Alex Kuruvilla Trustee Dayanita Singh Managing Director, Kavita Singh Condé Nast India Ravi Agarwal Sarat Maharaj Ruchira Ghose Sadanand Menon Trustee V Vishwanadhan Former Chairperson, Riyas Komu Crafts Museum, Delhi V Sunil Bose Krishnamachari 10 11 Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018 Curator Anita Dube is a critically acclaimed artist and art writer.