Back to Fort Kochi for the first Art Biennale in India
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Cochin, we’re starting to know it quite well. We’ve been there 4 times now. So yes, it’s one of the most charming colonial city in India but still, it’s a bit too much. So why coming back over and over again? It’s actually an easy meeting point for all our friends and family visiting us in India over a weekend when they’re also visiting Kerala. Thus, we’re more coming here for the people than for the city in itself.
This time, we were actually lucky because we came here at the same time of the self-proclaimed “first Biennale in India” organized throughout the city, in mostly abandoned “godowns” or warehouses which are usually closed for the public. We were pretty cautious about the potential of such an event in India but we were finally stunned!
Exhibitions were spread out at the four corners of Fort Cochin with a scale and a diversity that we couldn’t expect. It was credible and comparable to big exhibitions we’re use to see in some of the best art centers in the world. More than the artwork exhibited, with most of them made specially for this Biennale, it was a true joy to be able to enter all those huge old warehouses where you could still smell with nostalgia the industrial activity of their golden age. It was also showing the huge potential of Kochi to become an arty city in its true sense with those warehouses being step by step reconverted in art galleries, trendy cafés or original restaurants. The Indian Berlin in a way! ok we’re a bit exaggerating here but still there’s something to be done in this city…
We’ve already done a quick “1 Minute” video for you to feel even more the atmosphere of the place:
Above that, it was, once again, a good occasion to verify with Nicolas’ family that the Kashi Art Café is the best spot for breakfasts, that dining in Old Harbour Hotel garden is perfect and that THE restaurant to have good Keralese seafood is Oceanos. Ok, that was the “Lonely Planet” instant for those who would like to visit, hurry up also as the Biennale will last again only until mid-march.