Step into the vast hall of the Island Warehouse on Willingdon Island, and scale is the first thing that overwhelms you. The venue hosts towering installations of the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale — hut-like mound structures, motorised iron sculptures, expansive ship paintings, woven tapestries, rice bags, palm trunks, boats and even tractor trolleys.

Yet at the centre of this cavernous space sits a quiet interruption: a slender white table shaped like a kaleidoscope. It is here that visitors, tired of looking upward and all around at monumental works, bend down — and discover an entire world in miniature.

Spread across the table are 101 tiny handcrafted pieces, each smaller than a palm. Together they form Topography, a delicate installation by 28-year-old artist Meenu James from Kochi. Made from wood, glass and acrylic paint, the fragments recreate the riverine fishing settlements of Kochi’s outskirts from the 1990s and early 2000s. Tile-roofed homes, fishing nets, coconut groves, boats, riverbanks, flowering trees and narrow village paths unfold in soft blues and greens. The arrangement evokes not just a landscape but a lived rhythm — one shaped by water, neighbourhood ties and slow, shared routines.

“It is about the place where I grew up until I was 13, before we were displaced in the name of development,” Meenu says. “I wanted memories that could be held in the hand — portable, intimate. That is why I chose miniature form.”

Meenu grew up in Koonammavu near Varappuzha, along the Kottuvally river, where her father operated a traditional Chinese fishing net. The family, like many others, lived on church-owned land until it was acquired for a waterfront villa project. Displaced families were offered houses elsewhere, but her family instead moved to Kongorppilly in search of better space.

Though they left, the river and its rhythms never faded away. That emotional geography later shaped her final project for the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the RLV College of Music and Fine Arts, Thrippunithura. Over four years, she refined the concept, sourced materials locally and hand-painted each piece. Initially, she produced 50 miniatures for her degree show. Biennale curators who visited the exhibition recognised its resonance with this edition’s theme, 'For the Time Being', and invited her to expand the work. She completed the remaining pieces to create the present installation.

Only during installation did she realise her work would sit among monumental structures in the warehouse. “I wondered why such a small work was placed between giant installations,” she says. “But once visitors came in, I understood. After viewing massive works, they pause here. The miniatures calm them. People lean closer, spend time, and often smile.”

The simplicity of Topography has made it widely accessible. Visitors — including international audiences — have told her it reminds them of their own childhood landscapes. “Everyone carries a memory of a slower, quieter place,” she says. “That is why it connects.” Beyond nostalgia, the work also reflects the pressures faced by fishing communities amid real estate expansion. Through repeated visual fragments, each piece becomes a micro-narrative of place, belonging and loss. Two diaries placed at the ends of the table extend this reflection, documenting her process of remembering and reconstructing.

“The landscape we lived in survives now mostly in memory,” Meenu says. “Through this work, it is documented — for others to see, and for the future to hold.” For her family, too, the installation has been deeply moving. The world they once inhabited, now altered beyond recognition, has found a new life — preserved in fragments, yet whole in feeling — inside one of Kerala’s most prestigious art exhibitions.