THIRD EDITION BIHAR MUSEUM BIENNALE 2025
Global South : Sharing Histories
About Bihar Museum Biennale
The Bihar Museum Biennale represents a paradigmatic shift in contemporary museological practice. It has established itself as the world’s first museum-focused biennale and fundamentally transformed the landscape of cultural institutions globally. This pioneering initiative emerged from the recognition that while numerous art, design and architecture biennales exist worldwide, no dedicated platform exists for museums to showcase their collections, methodologies and institutional narratives. The Bihar Museum’s conceptualisation of this biennale addresses a critical gap in the cultural sector by providing museums in India and the international community with a forum for scholarly exchanges, cultural dialogue and collaborative exhibition practices.
The Bihar Museum Biennale’s theoretical framework extends beyond traditional exhibition models. It offers a platform for conversations and connections across heritage, culture, art, history, living traditions and museum management. The Bihar Museum is a catalyst for redefining museum practice. It is turning static repositories into dynamic, experiential cultural hubs.
The inaugural Bihar Museum Biennale in 2021, conducted virtually due to pandemic constraints, established the foundational theme of “Bihar, India and the World: Connecting People, Connecting Cultures… In Changing Times.” This edition successfully engaged prestigious Indian institutions, including the Assam State Museum, City Palace Museum Udaipur, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Mumbai, Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya Bhopal, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art New Delhi, and the National Gallery of Modern Art New Delhi, among others. In 2023, the second edition was an on-site Biennale, and more than fifteen countries participated, including Indian museums like Salarjung in Hyderabad, KNMA in Mumbai and CSMVS in Mumbai. The G20 Art Exhibition ‘Together We Art’ was also included in the Bihar Biennale’s second edition.
The Bihar Museum Biennale is a pioneering initiative which is redefining the role of museums in a globalised world. It aims to bring about cultural exchange by bringing together museums, institutions and creative professionals to share ideas, exhibitions and experiences. The third edition of the Bihar Museum Biennale is now expanding its focus to connect museums and collections from Global South across Africa, South America and Asia. Connecting various cultures and countries across the Indian Ocean and maritime trade routes, there is a chance to thread aesthetics, mythologies, indigenous and contemporary arts, crafts, belief systems and performing arts and bring forth narratives from these countries. This biennale provides a dynamic platform to celebrate artistic and historical connections that the Global South collectively shares. The third edition of the Bihar Museum Biennale is a stage for conversations around heritage, culture, art, history, management and creating new narratives for the museums of today’s world.
This year’s biennale will feature International Exhibitions, Immersive Digital Experiences, Symposiums, Performing Arts. It will facilitate museum-to-museum exchanges that will establish long-term partnerships between museums of the world. The Bihar Museum Biennale is one of a kind Museum Biennale which will offer an unparalleled opportunity to engage with global audiences and contribute to a meaningful cultural dialogue.
Participants in BMB-III come from a carefully curated selection of countries across three continents of the Global South. Asia includes Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan. Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador and Peru are all part of the Latin American contingent. Ethiopia represents the African continent. Each participating country has been given complete control over how their histories and cultures are presented which will ensure an authentic representation. The exhibitions will feature paintings, sculptures, pottery, photographs, textile and installations.
The biennale will include major exhibitions from three prestigious Indian institutions: the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) and Rajasthan’s Mehrangarh Museum. A special mask exhibition from the IGNCA and Patna Museum collections, as well as contemporary artists Seema Kohli and Sachindranath Jha, will explore the universal significance of mask-making traditions across cultures and will try to map out the shared human desire for ritual, performance and cultural expression. In addition, the Biennale will host a painting exhibition on the theme of shared histories of the Global South, featuring thirty-nine paintings from New Delhi’s National Gallery of Modern Art.
“Evolution: Torres Strait Masks” and “Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route”, two exhibitions from the National Museum of Australia that were part of the curtain raiser, took place from June 3 to June 18, 2025, set significant precedents for the study of indigenous cultural traditions and the effects of colonial development on traditional communities. These exhibitions set the main biennale program’s intellectual and curatorial tone.
Theme of Bihar Museum Biennale 2025
The Bihar Museum Biennale 2025 opens as a space of convergence—where histories travel, intersect, and take new form. Under the theme Global South: Sharing Histories, this edition brings together artists, thinkers, and institutions from across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It is an invitation to trace the subtle threads that connect diverse worlds: shared struggles, parallel dreams, and creative lineages that have long moved outside the gaze of dominant narratives. This Biennale does not seek to define the Global South, but to dwell within its multiplicity—to celebrate how histories are made not in isolation, but in relation, through exchange, remembrance, and reinvention.
Bihar Museum, with its deep ties to India’s ancient and layered cultural past, serves not only as the site but also the soul of this initiative. In its architecture and collections, it holds fragments of time—stone, script, textile, image. Yet in this moment, the museum becomes more than a space of preservation. It becomes a site of becoming. A space where contemporary practices meet ancestral rhythms, and where art becomes a means of rewriting, not just recalling, the past.
The Biennale unfolds through works that are rooted in local cosmologies but speak across borders—works that trace the histories of trade, exile, resistance, devotion, and survival. From reimagined ritual objects to documentary installations, from reassembled archives to new myths in motion, these works carry with them the textures of place and the pulse of movement. They suggest that history is not a singular narrative, but a field of echoes—a polyphony still unfolding.
To share histories is not to make them the same. It is to honour their distinct textures while listening for the resonances that pass quietly between them—resonances carried in gestures of making, in songs remembered, in forms shaped by land, loss, and longing. The Biennale attends to these echoes—not as ornament or theme, but as invitations to speak across time and distance, and as grounds for dialogue and co-creation.
Against the backdrop of global inequality and ecological uncertainty, this edition invites not onlyreflection but relation. Programs of public engagement—symposia, film screenings, workshops, and community activations—extend the Biennale beyond the museum itself, creating horizontal spaces of exchange.
In a world where dominant histories still speak the loudest, the Bihar Museum Biennale offers another possibility: a gathering of perspectives that makes space for silence, slowness, and the unfinished. Here, the Global South is not imagined as a geography of lack, but as a source of richness—of forms, knowledge, and ways of being that challenge the hierarchies of the global art world.
The 2025 Biennale is an invitation to remember differently, to imagine together, and to share across the lines that have long divided. In doing so, it marks not just an exhibition, but a movement—towards a world where histories are not owned, but held in common.
Event Details
6th August
Heritage Walk
Patna Museum, Buddha Marg – Bihar Museum, Nehru Path, Patna
Around 600 students and professionals will be participating in the Heritage walk as a pre-event for the Bihar Museum Biennale 2025. It will be the first time a walk is being organised in such a large magnitude in Patna.
7th August
Bihar Museum Biennale Inauguration at 5pm.
EXHIBITION INFO
Spiritual Crossing: Masks as sacred symbols, ritual objects and theatrical journey
7th August – 31st September
Venue – Temporary Exhibition Gallery
The Bihar Museum, Patna and the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi is presenting an international exhibition of traditional masks from the continents of the Global South, Asia, Africa and Latin America. This exhibition will showcase the diversity and depth of mask traditions across three continents and look at the symbolic, performative and ritualistic dimensions of this age-old art form.
Since ancient times, masks have transcended boundaries between the self and the other, as well as between humans and gods. Rather than concealing, masks reveal invisible worlds through sensorial experiences: ceremonial, ritualistic, or performative.
This collection, presented by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and enriched by contributions from contemporary Indian artists, features a diverse array of masks from the Global South—Africa, Asia and Latin America. These regions have birthed, sustained and shared diverse spiritual practices tied to mask rituals, including shamanic traditions, mythological narratives, and ceremonial celebrations.
As unique, handcrafted objects, these masks embody both aesthetic and symbolic values rooted in ancestral origins. They carry the essence of the distinctive cultures of the Global South, bridging the past and the present.
Our Worlds and Ourselves: Perspectives from Asia, Africa, and Latin America (NGMA)
7th August – 31st September
Venue – Temporary Exhibition Gallery
This exhibition of artworks from the NGMA highlights creative practices from the global ‘periphery’. The exhibition explores the shared experiences of economic and cultural subjugation and solidarity between the three continents of the global south. The exhibition looks at how artists have negotiated identity and belonging, and forging a space beyond traditional global hierarchies.
This exhibition brings together artworks from the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, and highlights voices from Asia, Africa and Latin America—regions that are often called the “global periphery”, yet are rich with creative vitality. These works trace journeys of resistance and renewal, shaped by histories of colonisation, cultural assertion and shared dreams of independence.
In the aftermath of imperialism, many artists turned inward—towards their landscapes, rituals, myths and memories—to shape new languages of selfhood. They also looked outward, forging connections across borders and oceans, imagining solidarity beyond the Global North’s gaze. This exhibition explores how these artists have used visual expression to reclaim identity, resist erasure and reimagine what art—and the world—could be.
Divided into three interlinked sections—The Self, The World and Reinventions—the exhibition moves from personal reflection to global engagement to radical transformation, inviting viewers to see how artists have expanded what it means to belong, to remember and to create.
Indonesia-India Bridge of Civilisation
7th August – 21st September
Venue – Multipurpose Hall
India and Indonesia share a civilisational bond spanning two millennia that is reflected in culture, language and history. To capture the essence of this relationship, the theme of the exhibition is “A Bridge of Civilisations”, which celebrates the shared richness and longstanding ties that were nurtured through maritime trade routes, temple architecture, integration of Sanskrit words into the Indonesian language and of course, the continuing legacies of the Ramayana and Mahabharata.
India and Indonesia share a civilisational bond spanning two millennia, reflected in culture, language, and history — a bridge of civilisations that continues to inspire cooperation across the Indo-Pacific
The friendship between India and Indonesia is not merely a product of 75 years of formal diplomatic relations, it is a bond forged over two millennia of shared history, culture, and values.
With over 17,000 islands, Indonesia is the largest archipelagic country in the world. India and Indonesia are direct maritime neighbours, with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands lying just 160 kilometres from Indonesia’s Sabang Island in Aceh Province.
Our bilateral relationship has evolved from having been comrades in the struggle against colonialism, united in the pursuit of independence, to being partners shaping the post-colonial world order, and to becoming drivers of the Asian Century focused on the Indo-Pacific.
To capture the essence of this deep-rooted relationship, the theme of our exhibition is ‘A Bridge of Civilisations’, celebrating the shared richness and longstanding ties, which were nurtured through maritime trade routes, temple architecture, integration of Sanskrit words into the Indonesian language, and, of course, the continuing legacies of the Ramayana and Mahabharata.
We hope this exhibition will deepen understanding of this shared past, and inspire greater cooperation in the present and future between our two nations.
– HE. Ina Krisnamurthi, Ambassador of Indonesia to India
Exhibition from Ethiopia
Venue – Multipurpose Hall
7th August – 21st September
Ethiopian artist Mihiretu Wassie expresses her artistic vision through buttons and leather scarps. For her, the colour, pattern, texture of these buttons connect her art to traditions of Ethiopian cultural dresses. She uses these buttons and leather scraps as puzzles to bring her work to life. The result of these artworks are epic narratives that captivate us with an almost hypnotic force.
Exhibition from Sri Lanka
7th August – 7th September
Venue – Children’s Mezzanine
This exhibition features a collection of works by three Sri Lankan artists Jagath Ravindra, Pinki Madewala and Shanaka Kulathunga. These works revolve around identity, relationships, beauty, struggle, emotions, loss and a kaleidoscope of human existence. With great variation in style, format, expression and tone, the works express and preserve the state of being through the medium of art.
This exhibition brings together the distinct yet converging practices of Jagath Ravindra, Dr. Shanaka Kulathunga, Pinki Kumari Tanuja Madawela, and Shehan Madewala, each offering a unique meditation on form, memory, and emotion. Ravindra captures fleeting moments through shifting colour and scale, blending Impressionist transience with abstraction rooted in local sensibilities. Dr Shanaka Kulathunga, both doctor and artist, renders the human form with anatomical precision and quiet intensity, his figures often dissolving into nature, echoing the body’s deep entanglement with its surroundings. Pinki Kumari draws from the cultural terrains of Bihar and Mysore, exploring materiality through texture, pigment, and found objects. Shehan Madawela, shaped by his education at Kala Bhavan, Shantiniketan and time in Bangalore and Mysore, engages with the spiritual, ecological, and multicultural through richly layered oil paintings, often enriched by the use of metallic leaf and acrylic. Together, their works form a resonant dialogue between the physical and the ephemeral, inviting viewers into layered worlds of body, space, and perception.
Mexico: Living Echoes of an Ancestral Tradition
7th August – 7th September
Venue – Patna Museum Temporary Gallery
This exhibition brings together works by visual artist Eva Malhotra and the Embassy of Mexico in India. The works of Eva Malhotra take inspiration from the Maya Population who are a group of people who have lived for millennia, mostly in the Mesoamerican territory of Southern Mexico and Guatemala. From the Embassy of Mexico, one can experience the different cultures of Mexico through 12 pre-hispanic artefacts and 13 photographs. One can also experience the different cultures of Mexico through the textiles on display.
This exhibition offers a window into the soul of Mexico—its deep-rooted histories, vibrant cultures, and enduring creativity. Through archaeological treasures, folk traditions, contemporary textiles, and modern artworks, it traces the living legacy of Mesoamerican civilizations and foregrounds the vital role of women as keepers of knowledge, makers of form, and carriers of memory. Spanning over three millennia—from 1200 BCE to the present day—the works on display come from across Mexico and reflect a dynamic interplay of continuity and change.
Presented at the Bihar Museum, this exhibition becomes a bridge between India and Mexico—two sister cultures that have long turned to art as a means of remembrance, resistance, and renewal. We invite you on a journey across time and terrain, to discover Mexico’s extraordinary story and celebrate a shared spirit of creativity and spiritual imagination.
ICCR – Vishwaroop Ram: The Universal Legacy of Ramayana.
7th August – 7th September
Venue – Children’s Gallery Classroom
This exhibition presented by the ICCR brings together Ramayana-inspired artefacts, traditions and art forms from around twenty countries. The significance of this exhibition lies not just in its scale but in its spirit. It represents a conscious effort to acknowledge the global footprints of the Ramayana; how the narrative travelled through trade, migration, performance and oral tradition; how it was embraced and adapted by various cultures. From Bali to Trinidad, one can see how the Ramayana shaped language, law, dance, theatre and moral codes across civilisations.
Peru: A Country of Inexhaustible wonders that never cease to amaze the world!
7th October – 7th November
Venue – Multipurpose Hall
The exhibition invites you on a journey of discovery of Peru through mixing history and textiles with tales of culture. The textiles and reproduction of different types of clothes and accessories narrates the tale of the different ancient Peruvian cultures. Along with this, the sixty four fine replicas of pottery and clay artefacts and Pre-Inca ceramics produced by Andean civilisations developed between 900 BC to 1000 AD in different regions of Peru offer a peek into the daily lives and beliefs.
An Argentine Walk
17th September – 30th October
Venue – Children’s Gallery Classroom
This wide-ranging photography exhibition invites you on a journey to discover the stories, the landscapes and the soul of Argentina through the photographs of Pablo Katlirevsky. This exhibition is like taking a walk around Argentina to experience the frozen moments, the glances that cross out and look at photography as a witness to those things that should not get lost in oblivion.
Patna Kalam
17th September to 30th October
Venue – Patna Museum Temporary Gallery
This exhibition focuses on the Patna Kalam Painting of Bihar. These paintings were developed in Patna under the patronage of the British by combining the Indian miniature painting style and the western style. One of the first art styles in the world to give place to common people and their daily life on canvas. More than one hundred and fifty paintings of Patna Kalam are on display in the exhibition. Apart from the paintings preserved in the Patna Museum, it also includes paintings donated by Sanjay Kumar, Dhanbad, a descendant of the famous Patna Kalam painter Hulas Lal.
The Institution of Power in the Kazak Steppe
17th September – 30th November
Venue – Bapu Tower Temporary Gallery
The independent Republic of Kazakhstan is a young state, but despite this, its history goes back thousands of years and is closely intertwined with ancient civilisations. The exhibition, brought by the Presidential Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan, narrates the story of Kazakhstan’s national history and the spiritual legacy by looking at the social and political institutions from ancient times to the present day, the great statesmen, the sacred symbols of power, as well as the art of war and the culture of nomadic weapons.
Home in a space left Behind
7th November – 7th December
Venue – Patna Museum Temporary Gallery
Archival materials and cultural references to the idea of ‘home’, ‘where we grew up’ often appear in the artistic languages of the diasporic artists who are descendents of the indentured labour migration as well as artists from the Bihar region. This exhibition looks at the idea of ‘home’ in the works of artists from the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean as well as artists from Bihar who create a visual language that points to multiple interpretations of identity and memory. This exhibition makes one reconnect to the idea of ‘home’ and gives an opportunity to reimagine lives that have bygone.
The Origin of Cacoa
16th November – 31st December
Venue – Multipurpose Hall
Ecuador, in northwestern South America, is home to four unique geographic regions. This diversity has shaped a rich cultural and ecological heritage. Archaeological evidence from the upper Amazon, reveals that cacao (Theobroma cacao) was first domesticated here over 5,500 years ago, which makes Ecuador the true origin of cacao in the world. This exhibition narrates the story of Ecuador’s legacy as the cradle of cacao that continues to influence global chocolate traditions of the world today.
Shakti – The Supreme Goddess
7th November – 31st December
Venue – Children’s Gallery Classroom
The manifested form of Devī is identified with different names performing different roles. She is the primordial cosmic energy that drives the universe, embodying the unity of creation, preservation, destruction and transformation. She is beyond human dualities and limitations, embodying the Creator (Bramhā), the Preserver (Viṣṇu) and the Destroyer (Śiva). Through miniature paintings from Mehrangarh Museum Trust, the exhibition showcases the Divine Feminine with its multifaceted aspect.
Double Truth II, Immersive Experience
15th December 2025 – 30th June 2026
Venue – Children’s Mezzanine
Double Truth II is an interactive installation that explores how today’s technologies unite to replicate cultural artefacts with remarkable fidelity. Showcasing a series of significant objects from the Bihar Museum collections in Patna spanning Jain, Hindu and Buddhist traditions, the installation focuses on affirming and activating visitors’ sensory experiences.
Seminar and Talks
8th August
11.00 am
Shri Anjani Kumar Singh, Director General, Bihar Museum
Welcome Speech
11.15 am
Dr Alka Pande, Academic Director and Editor for the Third Bihar Museum Biennale
Introduction to Seminar.
11.30 am – 12.30 pm
Prof. Anil Sooklal, High Commissioner of South Africa to India
Keynote Address
12.30 – 1.00 pm
Tim Curtis, Director and Representative, UNESCO India
UNESCO’s Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage : Broadening the
Global Concept of Cultural Heritage
Memory, Empathy, Conflict within Museums (Experts and Curators from India, Mexico)
This session explores how museums in the Global South carry the weight of memory, history, and unresolved conflict. Avni Sethi and Eva Malhotra will engage with questions of curatorial responsibility, cultural memory, and the ethics of representation. Objects in these spaces are not passive, they speak, they testify, they resist. Through the lens of India and Mexico, we look at the museum as a site of power, emotion, and struggle. Empathy becomes a curatorial method, and conflict a doorway to deeper engagement with our pasts.
(2.00 – 4.00 pm)
Dr Alka Pande, Academic Director and Editor for the Third Bihar Museum Biennale, Moderator
Avni Sethi, Interdisciplinary Practitioner, Design & Conceptualized Conflictorium Museum, India, Panellist
Eva Malhotra, Visual Artist, Mexico, Panellist
Music as a Cross-Cultural Experience, (Experts from countries including India, South Africa & Argentina)
This session listens to the soundscapes of the Global South across India, Argentina, and South Africa, where music is memory, migration, and resistance. Dr Ajit Pradhan, Alejandro Lepez, and Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa will reflect on the ways music transcends borders and carries the imprint of lived histories. Music becomes a language beyond words, a vessel of cultural memory shaped by histories of colonisation and freedom. It carries the pulse of everyday life, of ritual, of protest. Through voices and rhythms, we trace how cultures connect across continents.
4.30 – 6.00 pm
Dr Alka Pande, Academic Director and Editor for the Third Bihar Museum Biennale, Session Introduction
Nidheesh Tyagi, Co-founder, Abir Pothi, India Moderator
Dr Ajit Pradhan, Cardiac Surgeon, Promoter & Preserver of Hindustani Classical Music in Patna, India, Panellist
Alejandro Lepez, Music Professional and Cultural Researcher, Latin American Music, Argentina, Panellist
Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa, Storyteller, Executive Coach and Facilitator, South Africa, Panellist
9th August 2025
Masks: Shamans, Myths, Symbols, (Experts from countries including India, Ethiopia & Mexico)
This session aims to address the concerns around shamans, masks and magic. Agegnehu Adane Dilnesahu, Dr Achal Pandya and Sari Sasaki will look at the context of materiality, myth, metaphor, magic and rituals of masks and mask-making. All the countries of the Global South have a tradition of mask-making. This is a living tradition which continues till today. Masks are symbols of sacred powers and of identity. Mask-making has been integral to all the indigenous societies of the Global South. The discussion around masks unfolds through people, through material, and through lived experiences.
11.00 am – 1.00 pm
Dr Alka Pande, Academic Director and Editor for the Third Bihar Museum Biennale, Moderator
Dr Achal Pandya, Head of Department, Conservation and Cultural Archives, IGNCA, India, Panellist
Sari Sasaki, International Expert and Researcher on masks of Africa and Latin America, Panellist
Power of the Feminine Gender, Sexuality & Material Culture, (Experts from countries including India, Sri Lanka & Thailand)
This session centres on the power of the feminine as it moves through gender, sexuality, and material culture. Jagath Ravindra and Asst. Prof. Dr. Anucha Thirakanont will explore how feminine energies are expressed through form, ritual, and symbolic practices across their cultural landscapes. In India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, the feminine has been a site of both creative force and shaping craft and representation in epics. From textiles and bodily adornment to abstract visual languages, the feminine manifests in forms that are sensuous, symbolic, and spiritual.
2.00 pm – 4.00 pm
Dr Alka Pande, Academic Director and Editor for the Third Bihar Museum Biennale, Moderator
Juan Garibay, National Coordinator INAH, Mexico, Panellist
Jagath Ravindra, Director General of VAPA television and Visual Art, Colombo, Sri Lanka, Panellist
Seema Kohli, Multidisciplinary artist, India, Panellist
Buildings as Metaphor: Ramayana Narratives of South East Asia, Stories from the Global South, (Experts from countries including India, Indonesia & Thailand)
This seminar journeys through temples, palaces, and cities where the Ramayana lives in stone, wood, and mural. Parul Pandya Dhar, Dr Agus Widyatmoko, and Professor Dr Pornrat Damrung will share insights into how architecture reinterprets epic narratives across their regions. Across India, Indonesia, and Thailand, buildings are metaphors, they carry memory, mythology, and moral codes. Architecture becomes narrative, and narrative becomes place. We explore how epic stories migrate, evolve, and remain rooted in the cultural landscapes of the Global South.
4.30 – 6.30 pm
Dr Alka Pande, Academic Director and Editor for the Third Bihar Museum Biennale, Moderator
Dr Parul Pandya Dhar, Professor, Department of History, University of Delhi, India, Panellist
Dr Agus Widyatmoko, Chief of Cultural Preservation Agency Region V, Indonesian Ministry of Culture, Indonesia, Panellist
Dr. Pornrat Damrung, Professor, Department of Dramatic Arts, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, Panellist
Participating Countries and Institutions
- Indonesia
- Ethopia
- Sri Lanka
- Mexico
- Peru
- Argentina
- Kazakhstan
- Ecuador
- IGNCA
- NGMA
- Mehrangargh
Cultural Programs
Date – 7th August 2025
7pm – 8pm
Cultural Program by Indonesian and Thai Cultural Troupe
Date – 8th August 2025
7pm – 8pm
Cultural Program by Indonesian Cultural Troupe
Date – 9th August 2025
7pm – 8pm
Cultural Program by Kilkari Bal Bhawan Students