Beyond the installations | Things to do in Fort Kochi while attending the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2022-23

Try street food walks in Mattancherry and festival special curry leaf negronis to a new concept space for handlooms

The Biennale will be all encompassing in the coming few months. Just the next few days will have singer and dancer Sithara Krishnakumar (December 14) and indie musician Lifafa (December 24) performing. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t much happening outside its immediate ambit. The annual Cochin Carnival, which kicks off on December 11 and is on till January 1, has everyone buzzing. There’s also the second edition of Kochi Design Week at Bolgatty (December 16-17) to look forward to. Plus, food and fashion pop-ups, heritage walks, film screenings, and ancillary art events. Here are a few to check out:

Cochin Heritage Carnival

Spread over three weekends in December, the first edition of the carnival by Johann Binny Kuruvilla’s Kochi Heritage Project aims to celebrate the city’s tangible and intangible heritage through walks, experiences and screenings.  “In 2018, I’d started a page to document the history, art and architecture of Kochi. Back then, we didn’t have city walks, so I started that and it created a lot of interest,” says Kuruvilla, who had taken a break during the pandemic, but is now back on popular demand.  

Must trys: Type Walk (December 11, 8.30-11 a.m.) — exploring type faces in Broadway with Prajwal Xavier, a lettering artist, followed by a calligraphy session. Street Food Trail (December 17, 5-7 p.m.) with Kuruvilla, where he will cover local favourites in Mattancherry’s Konkani, Gujarati and Muslim quarters. “We’ll stop at places like Kava Kada, which has been serving a delicious spiced coffee [with cardamom, ginger, cloves, black pepper] for over 60 years. And Chaman Lal Sweets, which features a special sweet every day.” Architecture and Urban Design Walk (December 24, 4-6 p.m.) led by Azna Parveen, a faculty of IIM Kozhikode who has studied the architecture of Fort Kochi and Mattancherry. Register on kochiheritageproject.in  

Screenings to catch:Maidanam, a 40-minute documentary (being streamed on FIFA’s official website) traces Kerala’s passion for football through fascinating stories. “One of the stories is that of Rufus D’Souza, who has been training kids in Fort Kochi for free for the last 50 years. He will be at the screening [December 11],” says Kuruvilla. On the first day of Hanukkah, Sarah Thaha Thoufeek — a story about the friendship between Sarah Cohen, the oldest Jew in India (she passed away at 96 in Jew Town), Thaha Ibrahim, a local tailor, and Thoufeek Zakriya, a calligraphy artist — will be screened (5-6.30 p.m.), with an interaction with the director Sarath Kottikkal. “It’s a limited screening as the documentary has been selected for a few film festivals,” says Kuruvilla.

Untaboo — The Shadow Artists

Via Kochi, a local magazine, is encouraging an ‘alternative’ discussion — bringing people together to share the stories we hold back. In January, a month that will be celebrating art in all its forms and mediums of expression, thanks to the KMB, will also see Untaboo. The sixth edition ‘brings strangers together, and digs into honest conversations’ will feature artists whose efforts society does not often deem as ‘real’ art — from tattoo artists and boudoir models to belly dancers.