KOCHI.- The fourth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale has opened its gates to all, ushering in another season of contemporary art, conversation, and celebration. Titled Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life, the Biennale will run until March 29, 2019, with over 100 projects displayed in heritage properties, public spaces, and galleries across Fort Kochi, Mattancherry, and Ernakulam, on India’s southwestern coast.

On her vision for this edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, curator Anita Dube remarked, ‘From the conceptual level, to the embodied experience of the Biennale visitor, ‘Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life’ attempts to offer a platform that operates through radical openness. The exhibition – whose didactic model is complicated and liberated by a collaborative space called the Pavilion – is energised by the interactions between works, the dialogue sparked between artistic voices and practices. The audience is invited to share, to listen, and even to challenge the space.’

In keeping with the curatorial theme, Dube has invited some 94 practitioners from over 30 countries, forming a dynamic range of social contexts and artistic approaches. In addition, there are a number independently curated programmes known as “infra-projects”, all responding to the wider curatorial theme.

Several projects are shown outside the exhibition space, enlivening the urban fabric of Kochi, and creating a new type of public engagement. Billboards by Andeel + Hassan Khan, commenting on specific socio-political contexts of Kerala through satirical cartoons, are visible in Ernakulam’s dense commercial areas. Feminist artist-activists Guerrilla Girls have translated their tongue-in-cheek critiques of art institutions into Malayalam for the first.

The Biennale Pavilion, a site for ancillary programming – talks, film screenings, musical and other performances – will host a Knowledge Laboratory, an open platform for sharing and learning across media and languages. On the laboratory, Anita Dube commented: ‘There will be no hierarchies of knowledge, or stratifications of content. It is a space for safe disagreement, uncomfortableness, and unease, as much as it is one of pleasure, celebration, and exchange. At its core, the knowledge laboratory is an ever-developing learning experiment that cannot be realised without public participation.’

Additional exhibitions include the Pepper House Residency, which sees 2018’s Kochi Biennale Foundation’s artists-in-residence return to Kochi to install their developed work, plus a range of independently organised Collateral Projects.