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26 Aug 2025

Salt in the Air, Art in the Veins: Biennale Season at The Old Lighthouse

When the sea stirs just past your window at The Old Lighthouse Bristow Hotel, and the breeze brushes the salt into the corridors, something begins to shift. It’s not just the tide or the rhythm of the fishing nets. It’s something more elusive. Something only Fort Kochi knows how to hold. Every few years, the town stops being a postcard and becomes a question. And the answer, or perhaps the beginning of it, comes in the form of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. This December, it returns.

The Biennale Comes Ashore

The sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, titled “For the Time Being,” will take place from December 12, 2025, to March 31, 2026. The title doesn’t just reference time; it challenges our relationship to it. Curated by artist and performer Nikhil Chopra, this year’s edition invites us to slow down, to experience art not just as something we view, but something we dwell in.

A living ecosystem. Think performances in courtyards, sound installations in spice warehouses, student interventions on street corners, and impromptu conversations unfolding in cafes. The Biennale isn’t something you go to, it’s something you wander into.

A City Written in Layers

Fort Kochi isn’t built on newness. It’s built on the quiet erasures and bold imprints of time. Portuguese tiles, Dutch bricks, British lamp posts, and Malayalam graffiti share the same breath here. The Biennale knows this, and never tries to paint over it. Instead, it listens. It collaborates with the ghosts and the living.

That spirit of continuity is about to deepen. The Kerala government has moved to acquire Aspinwall House and Cabral Yard, two venues that have hosted the Biennale for years without ever truly belonging to it. This potential acquisition marks a cultural shift: Fort Kochi is no longer just hosting the Biennale, it’s claiming it.

A Room with a Sea and a Story

From our rooms at The Old Lighthouse Bristow, you can hear the world arriving. The clink of chai glasses from the beachside stalls. The echo of foreign languages caught them in awe. The slow, deliberate footsteps of artists walking back from a performance that left them speechless.

We’ve seen this town in quiet monsoons and noisy Decembers, but nothing quite transforms Fort Kochi like the B iennale. The boundaries blur between gallery and street, between artist and visitor, between art and life. And for our guests, this proximity becomes a privilege. You wake up with the Biennale in your backyard.You drink coffee as installations are assembled.You walk into meaninglessness and discover meaning.

At twilight, you return to the Lighthouse. Changed, maybe. Or just awakened in some small, necessary way.

This Is an Invitation

Staying at The Old Lighthouse Bristow during the Biennale is not just about booking a room. It is to step into the quiet epicentre of something bigger than yourself. Each morning begins with the fresh smell of sea air. Artists pass by on their way to rehearsals. Galleries open their shutters. The world begins to arrive quietly, curiously, reverently. Step outside, and you’re moments away from it all. Walk to Aspinwall House. Wander past Pepper House. Drift through installations.
And when the day fades, return to the Lighthouse to reflect, to rest, to breathe.

The Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025-26 awaits you with The Old Lighthouse!