Biju Ibrahim | Artist | Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2022-23

"If you ask whether I'm a perfect photographer, I'd say no. Or, if you ask if I'm a documentarian, I'd also say no to that too. But if you ask, I'm a seeker? I would firmly say yes." -Biju Ibrahim

In the photographic work ‘Soul That Art at Rest’, Biju Ibrahim focuses his lens on his birthplace, Kondotty in Kerala – a town with a predominantly Muslim population that has purportedly maintained socio-cultural memories and ways of living from pre-modern Mappila life. (The Mappila are a Muslim community largely found in southern India.) A small town, Kondotty has a thriving Sufi tradition that accommodates varied cultural expressions from the Dravidian to the Arabian in art, literature, architecture and social life. By photographing people in the spaces they regularly inhabit, Ibrahim captures plural ethnicities, producing images of co-existence that the mainstream media has worked actively to obliterate from public memory.

Biju Ibrahim's artwork is now displayed at Aspinwall House, Fort Kochi. The Kochi-Muziris Biennale is curated by Shubigi open until 10th April 2023.