Third photo biennale aims to draw more visitors to city

The Chennai Photo Biennale (CPB), which was founded by the CPB Foundation and the Goethe Institut, began in 2016 with an aim to take photography and visual arts to public spaces. From parks and libraries to train stations and heritage sites, the biennale has been attempting to make common man engage with photography through its past two editions. Its organisers recently announced that the third edition will be held over two months from December 9, 2020, till February 6, 2021, with an aim to attract more visitors.

“CPB aims to position Chennai as a contemporary art destination by aligning the biennale with other prominent festivals happening around the same period, and attract audiences who criss-cross the city to attend the music and dance season,” says CPB’s co-founder Varun Gupta, a city-based photographer. “People fly to Cochin to visit the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (an international art exhibition in public spaces), we want visitors to come to Chennai to view CPB,” he asserts. The second edition held earlier this year witnessed over 50,000 visitors viewing the works of about 50 artists across 15 venues.

Four artists and curators who have been exploring different aspects of photography will be curating the ensuing third edition of the biennale. They are Arko Datto (Kolkata), Boaz Levin (Berlin, Germany), Bhooma Padmanabhan (Chennai) and Kerstin Meincke (Essen, Germany). “The biennale’s first edition in 2016 (which was a pilot) did not have a curator, while the second one had artist Pushpamala N as the curator. For the third edition, we decided to have a team of artists who could work together. Each of the four curators brings different perspectives to the table. We think that having international curators on board will help in drawing more global audiences,” Varun tells us. Besides contemporary photographs that touch upon a variety of socio-political subjects, archives will also be showcased during the exhibition.

While the artists and venues for the upcoming edition will be chosen by curators in the days ahead, improving the quality of installations remains one of the main tasks for the organisers. “We want to improve the quality of works exhibited, and also make navigating between venues easier for people. The quality of volunteers/knowledge guides, who would share details of the artworks to visitors, is another aspect we want to work on,” he admits.

While the second CPB was organised with a budget of Rs 3.3-crore, the two-month-long third edition hopes to raise Rs 5.5-crore, for the biennale as well as for the Foundation’s activities. “We aim to build a community that appreciates visual arts,”remarks Varun.