Kochi-Muziris Biennale

By Eby Vincent Mathew

🇮🇳 INDIA

CategoryLighting Project Design

Date of CompletionDecember 12, 2025

Location of ProjectKochi, India

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Lighting Performance & Usage Context

Art exhibition

Project Description

For the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025–26, India’s first and South Asia’s longest-running art biennale, we approached light as adaptable cultural infrastructure across 66 artists and 7 venues. Responding to old structures, shifting artworks, daylight, curatorial revisions, and footfall, we designed a track system with three fixture families for diffused, directional and focused light. Aimable fixtures, glare control, cinefoil shaping, gel filters, non-invasive mounting and electrical coordination resolved complexity while foregrounding responsibility with site-sensitive lumens, specification-grade fixtures, local procurement, resale/reuse and minimal intervention. In multiple height spaces, we paired architectural lighting with theatrical fixtures, using optics, beam control, RGBW colour and dimming to create precise, atmospheric depth. This bespoke hybrid shaped light with rigour and sensitivity, in close dialogue with the artworks, architecture, city and visitor experience.

Project Leader

Eby Vincent Mathew

Design Team

Anju Mary PJ, Sruthi Vijayan, Rahul CS

Image Credits

Kochi Biennale Foundation

Collaborators or Teams

Nikhil Chopra with HH Art Spaces

Studio / Company Name

studioEVM.

Profile

studioEVM is a lighting design practice working at the intersection of light, design, art and technology. With 50+ projects in museums, art, workspaces, residences, hospitality and landscapes, the studio explores light as a form of spatial intelligence, translating creative worlds across scales into lighting that is technically precise, visually captivating, context-aware and built to perform.

Company Website

studioevm.com/