Winchester School of Art to collaborate with India’s Art Biennale
Ed D’Souza, Head of School at Winchester School of Art, and Sunil Manghani, Reader in Critical and Cultural Theory, recently visited Kochi, India, to initiate an international artist project, which will form part of the second Kochi-Muziris Biennale, due to open in December, 2014.
The project is a collaboration between the School, the Biennale curators and the Barcelona and New York-based publishers ACTAR. The project forms part of the activities of WSA’s Centre for Global Futures in Art Design & Media, which focuses on creating and sustaining mutually beneficial and interactive partnerships with a range of public organisations.
As writer, designer and artist, Ed D’Souza has been working in the context of India for over twenty years, and has recently written on the ‘Biennale effect’ in relation to the inaugural Kochi-Muziris Biennale of 2012. The event attracted an international art crowd, but was also attended by a wide cross-section of the local population.
The Biennale enabled the renovation of signature buildings, and expectations are high for its next iteration in December. Fragmentary artworks on building walls remain dotted about the city, a very visual reminder of the Biennale of 2012 and its anticipated return this year.