Nikhil Chopra | Alphonse Joji/KBF
On the last day of his initial site visits for the upcoming Kochi-Muziris Biennale, artist-curator Nikhil Chopra felt as though he was confronting his ghost. The iconic Aspinwall House, a sea-facing heritage property in Fort Kochi that has long served as the biennale’s main venue, brought back memories of his 2014 engagement with the space. Back then, Chopra had set up a cell, taken on the persona of Black Pearl, a fictional colonial character, and transformed the walls with intricate drawings. He confined himself to that room for 52 hours, eating, sleeping and creating an immersive live performance.
“We had explored everywhere, leaving Aspinwall House for the very end, and without any deliberate planning, we ended up there. I am someone who always seeks signs, constantly searching for how the universe communicates with me,” Chopra told THE WEEK. He explained that the eerie, almost mystical experience led to a profound realisation about how an artist’s practice extends beyond the self, weaving together not only the various elements of their craft but also the people connected to it. “Standing in that space, I reflected on my transition―from being an artist who once performed there to now carrying the responsibility of bringing other artists into that same environment,” he said.
On November 21, the Kochi Biennale Foundation announced Nikhil Chopra and HH Art Spaces, a Goa-based art collective closely associated with him, as the curatorial team for the sixth edition of the acclaimed and dynamic Kochi-Muziris Biennale, south Asia’s largest contemporary art exhibition. Chopra views this new role as an evolution of his artistic practice, placing emphasis on generating collective artistic responses.
“My practice now extends beyond creating a singular artistic reaction to inspiring responses from 60 to 65 artists from around the world,” he said. “What truly interests me is the language of collaboration. It is not just about my talents, but about bringing together various skills and expertise to navigate the intersection of performance, theatre, painting, drawing, costume, food, life, space and technology. Creating in this way requires the interaction and cooperation of many expert minds. I believe that a biennale of this scale invites artists to embrace not just their individual selves, but a larger, collective ‘super self’.”
Chopra, as an artist, has employed autobiographical elements as his starting point to develop narratives on a larger collective history. And a personal tragedy―the death of his sister in a car crash in 1999―became a turning point in his life as well as art. “I believe I was a decent artist before this tragedy, but it was through this experience that I became a more critical artist,” he said. “It made me realise that art could be a means to confront and understand my own impermanence―that we are all just one breath away from the end.” The tragedy also made Chopra realise that he has a language through which he could heal. “Through art, I could address the profound sense of emptiness that loss brings―a void that can never truly be filled,” he said. For Chopra, tragedies and traumas don’t just disappear; they leave scars, like the ones on your knees from childhood falls. “These scars remain a constant reminder of a moment that shaped you,” he said.
Delving into themes of body, identity and history, Chopra masterfully evokes unease and tension through his exploration of historical traumas. Kochi itself stands as a testament to such wounds, shaped and scarred by historical forces―from local kings to colonial superpowers. Chopra, in his poetic vision, likens Kochi to a part of the human body.
“If the Asian continent had a tongue and a body, Kochi would be at the tip of the subcontinent’s tongue,” he said. “I often think about bodies as both form and a means of creation, reflecting our place in the world. It is through the limitations and potential of our bodies that we understand our existence. When I consider the tip of the tongue, I also think of Kochi as the spice capital of the world―a place where history, culture and the body come together in fascinating ways.”
Elaborating further, he added that we have offered the world an experience that begins on the tongue. “Take pepper, for example―it connects us to a global reality, present on every dining table around the world. Pepper sits alongside salt, the black counterpart to salt’s whiteness. Without pepper, we wouldn’t feel that zing on our tongues, that joy, that lightness of being―the kind of spiciness that humans crave and have become addicted to. Even the simplest form of cooking has pepper in some form.”
As we add spices to our food, we connect with countless histories, said Chopra. However, he goes beyond that, thinking how trade and commerce, especially those related to spices, reveal a more complex reality. “It brings us face-to-face with the movement of money, shifting currencies and the dynamics of power,” he elaborated. “This history isn’t always romantic; it carries oppression, domination, control, hierarchy, division and subjugation. These realities emerge when we trace the journey back to something as simple and pervasive as spice.”
Like pepper, Chopra has been a global presence, connecting with diverse cultures and audiences. Born into a Punjabi family in Kashmir, he grew up across India and the Middle East, spending much of his adult life in cities like Mumbai, Baltimore, Columbus, New York, Berlin and Goa. Reflecting on his lack of attachment to any single place, Chopra shared a profound insight from one of his mentors, Dr Professor Fisher-Lichter, during his Berlin fellowship in 2011–2012.
“She asked me to tell her about myself, and I said my roots were in Kashmir. She responded, ‘Roots? What do you mean roots?’ I explained it as where my family comes from, and she replied, ‘Trees have roots; humans have legs.’” This perspective encouraged Chopra to rethink the concept of belonging as fluid and ever-evolving.
As curator of the biennale, Chopra seeks to explore these fluid spaces, spotlighting artists who dwell in the “slippery space”, where boundaries blur―boundaries drawn by race, gender, sexuality, nationality and other societal constructs. In doing so, he is also focusing on the global south, highlighting under-represented countries while looking more towards artists who challenge stereotypes and expand our understanding of identity as well as the processes of creating and experiencing art.