Kochi Muziris Biennale's family story traces memories from Kollam to Kannur

Facing the Kochi backwaters from the upper floor of Aspinwall House, irregular forms line the corridor walls. Through watercolour works, artist Smitha M Babu revisits childhood memories shaped by another backwater landscape in South Kerala— Ashtamudi Lake. Working in muted, earth-toned palettes, Smitha reflects on growing up in Kollam, where coir-making traditions structured everyday life and community interactions. Her installation, 'Pakkalam' — a Malayalam term referring to the weaving space — extends beyond painting into performance. Alongside the thirty watercolours is a fifteen-minute theatrical film featuring her two children, Akhira, a first-year student at the School of Drama, and Rivera, a school student. Both share a strong interest in theatre.

At the nearby Coir Godown, under tiled roofs and dim light, stands one of the largest works of the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. The massive rural landscape painting 'Wiping Out', by Smitha’s husband R B Shajith, draws from his childhood memories in Kannur. Through detailed yet restrained imagery, he reconstructs the sensory world of Noth Malabar’s countryside. Together, the couple — along with their children — have all found a place in the Biennale themed 'For the Time Being'.

“This is our first Biennale, and it feels special that all of us, including our children, could participate — all at the main venue,” says Smitha. Smitha and Shajith met during their Bachelor of Fine Arts studies at the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram, in the 2005 batch and later married. Shajith now works in the communication division of the Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT), while Smitha has long been active in theatre and previously worked as a private school art teacher. Both have continued painting alongside their professions. Their Biennale selections came independently, and each spent nearly two months completing their works.

Smitha explains that Pakkalam was first shown in a studio in Alappuzha, where Biennale curators encountered it. The series departs from the conventional bright depiction of Kerala’s backwaters. Instead, layered pigments create a dense, almost opaque surface, with fading soil-tones suggesting the fragility of memory. The floating, borderless frames evoke shifting lives and the fluid relationship between land and water. “I grew up in Neeravil near the lake, where coir-making spaces — pakkalams — were everywhere,” she recalls. “Those spaces shaped not just labour but also gatherings, arts, and discussions. Today they have largely disappeared, replaced by mechanised production and new livelihoods.”

Though rooted in working-class life, her paintings move beyond documentation. Mythic figures, masked presences, and dancing strangers appear across the frames. Some images even echo motifs from playwright Girish Karnad, blending memory with later artistic influences. “I am translating the memories of a community I grew up in,” Smitha says. “But memory is layered — it includes what we encountered later in life as well. That's why Karnad's 'Hayavadana' has a place in it.”

A theatre practitioner for over two decades and a member of Prakash Kalakendram in Kollam, Smitha integrates performance sensibilities into her imagery. Scenes of coir workers often double as performers, reflecting the rhythm, movement, and collective energy of labour itself.

Meanwhile, Shajith’s 'Wiping Out' series — developed over several years — examines ecological shifts in rural Malabar. The Biennale work, measuring roughly 50 by 10 feet and assembled from ten canvases, is the 50th piece in the series. Through areca palms, tiled Malabar houses, grasses, and native flora, he reconstructs the landscape of his childhood while addressing environmental change and development pressures.

“If viewers can walk along the work physically, they can also enter the idea,” he says, explaining his choice of scale as ensuring precision in detail rather than treating the past as a vague recollection. Executed in oil, acrylic, and watercolour on canvas, the work reflects on ecological degradation and the blurring boundaries between human settlement and wilderness. Animals such as pigs, peacocks, and tigers appear alongside houses without walls, suggesting coexistence rather than division. “The peacock reflects climatic shifts,” he notes. “And the open houses point to a more harmonious way of living.”

His colour palette and expressive strokes, he adds, are influenced by Vincent van Gogh. Through recurring forms and plant motifs — including the flame-like chamotha blossom — Shajith’s paintings function both as personal archive and environmental reminder. Together, Smitha and Shajith’s works form a shared meditation on memory, landscape, labour, and ecological transformation — seen through the intertwined histories of two regions and one family.