The maiden Kochi Art Week has injected fresh life into the art galleries of Fort Kochi and Mattancherry. Inaugurated on December 12, it is being conducted at 11 venues across the city and addresses a range of themes, many inspired by the ongoing pandemic.

David Hall is host to ‘Wheeling on Borderlines’, a show by the former Chairman and Secretary of Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, Sathyapal, which offers a peek into the life of tribes of Madhya Pradesh, where the artist lived intermittently for several years from 1998.

At Kashi Café, 47 black-and-white drawings by Mumbai-based artist Lakshmi Madhavan fascinate with curious use of technology. The small frames grouped together in an entity titled ‘See, Saw, Seen’ are works done when the first lockdown was announced in March 2020. The most striking feature in the drawings is the eye, which moves in six frames. “I had a certain sense of sight, during this period, by watching my baby and the changed perspectives due to the pandemic,” says Lakshmi.

Baroda-based artist Raju Baraiya walks a fine balance between his rural and urban identities, in the context of the current health crisis, in ‘Social Gathering’ at Mandalay Hall in Jew Street. Through works titled ‘Social Gathering’, ‘Social Distance’ and ‘Tradition Is a Fashion’, which address social complexities in society, they also present the struggle against the coronavirus.

The late Jangarh Singh Shyam, who was among the first Gond artists to use paper and canvas for his paintings, thereby inaugurating what is now known as ‘Jangarh Kalam’, is celebrated in a group show with images of the tribal culture at Dezika Tribal Art gallery in Jew Town.

Dibin Thilakan’s solo show at Mattancherry OED Gallery, ‘Bonds of Lineage’, presents watercolours and moves at a philosophic level. The Thrissur-based artist is known for his narrative style. K.R. Sunil’s black-and-white photographs, shot over a period of two years, capture the trauma of broken and washed away homes on the Kerala coast, at a show in Pepper House. Malabar House, a boutique hotel, off Parade Ground, offers a stunning exhibition of creative weaving with tapestry works by a family of artists – Balakrishnan, K.V. Santha and V. Vasudevan – from Beypore in Kozhikode.

At the District Heritage Museum, the journey of Kerala’s history is presented in artefacts, paintings, lithographs and maps. The other venues in the city are Kerala Museum at Edappally and The Art Corridor, Hotel Le Meridien, by Palette People.

Organised by the Kochi Biennale Foundation, the seminars and talks related to the Art Week end on December 19 while the exhibition at the venues runs for a month till January 12.