The two-day programme includes speakers Geeta Kapur, Sarat Maharaj, Ranjit Hoskote, Gayatri Sinha, Pooja Sood and Nancy Adajania.

India’s first biennale, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the largest contemporary art event in the country, will take place from  12 December 2012 – 13 March 2013 across a string of venues in the Fort Kochi area.

Curated by co-founders and artists Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu, the first edition of Kochi-Muziris Biennale has nearly 90 artists participating, the large majority of whom are creating new, site-specific works. Half of the artists are Indian, a good number of them from Kerala.

Kochi Muziris Biennale explores the possibilities of blurring the boundaries, in a geographical region where boundaries are blurred in a local and cosmopolitan way, where the surroundings offer inspiration by way of the character of the place one can exhibit in. It can generate response to something that is already there as a public space in the neighborhoods, where perceived political content has been a major determinant of what survives and of what gets created as art in the first place.

Artists working on new commissions for the biennale include

• Sudarshan Shetty (India)
• Sanchayan Ghosh (India)
• Subodh Gupta (India)
• Hossein Valamanesh (Iran/Australia)
• Ariel Hassan(Argentina)
• Amanullah Mojadidi (Afghanistan)
• Anita Dube (India)
• Jyothi Basu (India)
• Tallur LN(India)
• Vivan Sundaram (India)
• Sheela Gowda (India)
• Joseph Semah (Netherlands)
• Nalini Malani (India)
• Atul Dodiya (India)
• UBIK (Dubai)
• Rigo 23 (Portugal)
• Jonas Staal (Netherlands)
• Dylan Martorell (Scotland/Australia)
• Ernesto Neto (Brazil)
• Reghunathan (India)
• PS Jalaja (India)
• Mathangi Arulpragasam (M.I.A.) (UK) 

The biennale will present an eclectic programme of talks, seminars, screenings, music, workshops and educational activities for students of all ages.