About
To host India's premier international biennale of contemporary art and to broaden public access to art, heritage and education in Kochi and beyond.
The Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) is the artist-led non-profit that produces the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) - India's first and largest biennale of international contemporary art, and one of Asia's biggest - held every two years in the historic port city of Kochi, Kerala. Beyond the flagship, the Foundation runs the Students' Biennale, Art By Children, residencies, and heritage-restoration and traditional-art revival programmes.
The Kochi-Muziris Biennale began as a government initiative when Kerala's Department of Cultural Affairs approached artists Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu to build an international art platform where none existed. The inaugural 2012 edition brought roughly 88 artists from 30 countries to repurposed warehouses and heritage buildings around Fort Kochi, and the biennale quickly became India's most important contemporary-art event, drawing some 600,000 visitors by its 2016-17 edition and launching the careers of many Indian artists.
Its recent history has been turbulent. The fifth edition opened late amid logistical problems, and the sixth - 'For the Time Being,' curated by Nikhil Chopra with HH Art Spaces (December 2025-March 2026, 66 projects from 25-plus countries) - was delayed from 2024 by financial constraints and a dispute over its central venue, Aspinwall House, after which the Foundation leaned more heavily on private donors. Its response has been to 'embrace slowness' and scale back - a deliberately more considered, locally rooted model.
Visit & Access
Held every two years across heritage venues in Fort Kochi and Mattancherry; the sixth edition runs 12 December 2025 to 31 March 2026.
Founding & Leadership
The Kochi Biennale Foundation was founded in 2010 by the artists Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu, after Kerala's Department of Cultural Affairs invited them to create an international art platform for India. Bose Krishnamachari, a leading contemporary artist, serves as President of the Foundation. The biennale was built largely from scratch - there was no prior biennale infrastructure in India - through a mix of government support, private patronage and local enterprise.
An artist-led not-for-profit governed by a board of trustees; Bose Krishnamachari is President, with an artist typically appointed to curate each edition.
Leadership & Trustees
Initiatives & Portfolio
India's first and largest international contemporary-art biennale, held every two years in Kochi; the sixth edition (2025-26) features 66 projects from 25+ countries.
A national platform within the biennale for art students and emerging practitioners.
Art-education and engagement programmes for children.
A commissioned Pavilion as the biennale's gathering space, plus residency and collaboration programmes.
Restoration and conservation of heritage properties and monuments and revival of traditional art forms in and around Kochi.
Cultural Funding
Cultural verticals
Impact & Metrics
Partnerships & Network
Partner institutions
Government partners
Funders & patrons
Curatorial partnerships each edition (e.g. HH Art Spaces, 2025-26); international loans and participation.
Credentials & Compliance
CSR-eligible · Schedule VII(v) - art & culture
[Atlas Assessment] A charitable foundation with strong public legitimacy (a state-initiated, government-supported biennale), but with documented institutional fragility: diminished Kerala state funding, a venue dispute that delayed the 2025-26 edition, growing dependence on a handful of private donors, and a past controversy over alleged non-payment to contractors (since being resolved). For a prospective funder this is a high-impact, high-need profile - the cultural return is exceptional, but stable, multi-year support is exactly what the institution lacks.
A charitable foundation eligible under CSR Schedule VII(v) (promotion of art & culture). Historically government-anchored; increasingly reliant on private patrons as state funding has diminished.
Recognition
India's first and largest biennale of international contemporary art; the biggest contemporary-art exhibition in Asia. Tourism-project awards (2012, 2016-17).
[Atlas Assessment] The Kochi-Muziris Biennale is the single most important contemporary-art event in India and a landmark of the global South's art calendar. It created biennale infrastructure where none existed, brought international contemporary art to a public, free-spirited setting, and became a launchpad for a generation of Indian artists. Its artist-led, 'people's biennale' ethos and its embedding in a living port city are widely admired and widely imitated.
On cultural impact, innovation and ecosystem influence the Kochi Biennale Foundation is in the top rank - it effectively built Indian contemporary art's global moment. But its institutional and financial footing is fragile, and honesty requires saying so: venue insecurity, shrinking state support, donor dependence and past payment disputes have repeatedly threatened editions. The scores reflect cultural achievement; the institutional risk is real and is the reason this profile reads, for a funder, as high-impact and high-need. Stable multi-year backing would do more for Indian contemporary art here than almost anywhere else.