Through consistent support for the Students' Biennale, the Tata Trusts have helped develop a national exhibition platform where Indian art students can showcase their work, develop their practice, and engage with the wider art world.
Reppandee Lepcha, a 28-year-old from Shipgyer, a small village in Sikkim, knows what that opportunity means. Her exhibit at the Students' Biennale, titled
'Shifting Landscapes', is rooted in identity and loss. Using paper pulp, rice paper, hemp wool and flowers, she tells a quiet, aching story of the fading
language and traditions of the Lepcha community she belongs to. It is also an expression of the frustration she feels at watching a culture slowly
disappear. A science graduate by training, she found her way into art on her own terms.
Reppandee is one of more than 200 students from around 175 state-funded art schools who participated in the 2025–26 edition of the Students' Biennale, 'Sensing Grounds.' This was held as part of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), one of Asia's most significant contemporary art festivals.
The curator collectives worked closely with students as collaborators rather than instructors, offering production support, mentorship, and curatorial
guidance, while students were selected through open calls, workshops and site visits.
For Reppandee, the experience confirmed a quiet conviction: the path she had chosen was uncertain, but necessary.
Across the exhibition, that sense of urgency took many forms. Arshaan Ali Khan and members of the Free Thinkers Collective at Aligarh Muslim University built a mixed-media installation on children growing up amid conflict.
From the personal politics of gender, students from Jawaharlal Nehru College of Fine Arts, Shimla used video and cyanotype to explore surveillance and the pressures placed on women. Rohit Athavale from JJ School of Art, Mumbai, examined caste and class fractures in an unequal city. The works were bold, unflinching, and deeply personal.
Among the most intimate was 'Forest Shelter' by Tai Sasum, a 25-year-old student from Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh. Through dyes, paintings and video, she reflected on memory, longing, and her mother's life, imagining a different escape, a different safety, even one that might erase her own existence. It was the kind of work the Students' Biennale was designed to hold.
Behind these works are curators who see their role as long-term engagement rather than one-time mentorship.
“Students must tell their own stories,” says Dharmendra Prasad of the Anga Art Collective, “because if they don't, someone else will, and badly.”
The Tata Trusts have supported the Students' Biennale across four editions of KMB (from 2016 onwards), including the latest, which concluded on March 31, 2026, after a four-month run. A key part of this support has been the institution of awards for outstanding student work, enabling national residencies and travel exposure to global art exhibitions.
The Students' Biennale has evolved into a first-of-its-kind national platform for Indian art students, with every edition expanding its outreach to increasingly remote regions and encouraging collaborative artistic practice across institutions and geographies, allowing more young artists to participate. With more than one million visitors, KMB presents a veritable networking and exposure opportunity for participants.
For Reppandee, the experience confirmed a quiet conviction: the path she had chosen was uncertain, but necessary.
Across the exhibition, that sense of urgency took many forms. Arshaan Ali Khan and members of the Free Thinkers Collective at Aligarh Muslim University built a mixed-media installation on children growing up amid conflict.
From the personal politics of gender, students from Jawaharlal Nehru College of Fine Arts, Shimla used video and cyanotype to explore surveillance and the pressures placed on women. Rohit Athavale from JJ School of Art, Mumbai, examined caste and class fractures in an unequal city. The works were bold, unflinching, and deeply personal.
Among the most intimate was 'Forest Shelter' by Tai Sasum, a 25-year-old student from Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh. Through dyes, paintings and video, she reflected on memory, longing, and her mother's life, imagining a different escape, a different safety, even one that might erase her own existence. It was the kind of work the Students' Biennale was designed to hold.
Behind these works are curators who see their role as long-term engagement rather than one-time mentorship.
“Students must tell their own stories,” says Dharmendra Prasad of the Anga Art Collective, “because if they don't, someone else will, and badly.”
The Tata Trusts have supported the Students' Biennale across four editions of KMB (from 2016 onwards), including the latest, which concluded on March 31, 2026, after a four-month run. A key part of this support has been the institution of awards for outstanding student work, enabling national residencies and travel exposure to global art exhibitions.
The Students' Biennale has evolved into a first-of-its-kind national platform for Indian art students, with every edition expanding its outreach to increasingly remote regions and encouraging collaborative artistic practice across institutions and geographies, allowing more young artists to participate. With more than one million visitors, KMB presents a veritable networking and exposure opportunity for participants.
The Trusts' consistent support for the Students' Biennale programme has ensured incremental
changes in formal art pedagogy, edition to edition, and an exhibition platform that is helping build
India's next generation of artists and art vocabulary.
Bringing Art into the Classroom and the Community
While the Students' Biennale supports emerging artists, for the 2026 edition, the Tata Trusts also supported KMB's Art by Children
(ABC) programme, which works at the other end of the creative journey, bringing art to children and children into art.
The programme makes art education accessible in Kerala's schools through hands-on activities that blend music, dance, play, and ecological awareness. Art educators and practitioners from across India work with schools, families, and local communities to create spaces that encourage self-expression, creativity, and critical thinking.
In the 2026 edition, ABC reached around 5,000 schoolchildren and teachers across six government schools in Ernakulam, Alappuzha, and Thrissur. Anganwadi workers were trained in art-based learning, and around 120 families were engaged, extending art beyond classrooms into everyday community life.
The programme makes art education accessible in Kerala's schools through hands-on activities that blend music, dance, play, and ecological awareness. Art educators and practitioners from across India work with schools, families, and local communities to create spaces that encourage self-expression, creativity, and critical thinking.
In the 2026 edition, ABC reached around 5,000 schoolchildren and teachers across six government schools in Ernakulam, Alappuzha, and Thrissur. Anganwadi workers were trained in art-based learning, and around 120 families were engaged, extending art beyond classrooms into everyday community life.
