Artist adds colonial flavour to Kochi-Muziris Biennale

Kochi: London-based Mauritian multidisciplinary artist Shiraz Bayjoo turns the tide of history at the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale, recreating colonial shipping away of spices, plant wealth, knowledge and skills from Kerala through a layered, site-specific installation. His work revisits maritime routes that once connected Kerala to Europe, tracing how trade across the Indian Ocean reshaped cultures and economies.Titled Sa Sime Lamer (2025) — Mauritian Creole for "the path to the sea" — the installation is mounted at Aspinwall House in Fort Kochi. Facing the sea, the work responds to the site's own history as a colonial trading hub."My work is about how the Dutch consolidated power, attempted to wipe out Portuguese influences and erase what they extracted from Malabar through oppression to enrich their lands and people," says Bayjoo.There are nine mahogany pillars of different heights placed around the space. Some of the pillars have ceramic figures of Dutch soldiers holding guns on top. These figures show how the Dutch used military power to control trade and dominate the region. Around them lie terracotta sculptures of pepper and nutmeg, dried coconut husks, coir coils and earthen coconuts — symbols of the region's agrarian abundance and commodities that drew colonial ambition. The arrangement evokes both ritual offerings and guarded storehouses, underscoring the tension between sacred land and commercial exploitation.Soft muslin prints of turmeric and drumstick plants hang nearby, recalling the now-abandoned Dutch Hortha garden in Kochi. Bayjoo also references Hortus Malabaricus, the 17th-century botanical compendium commissioned by Dutch governor Henrik van Rheede, which documented Malabar's medicinal plants while facilitating their transfer to Europe. Embroideries inspired by earlier spice illustrations from a 1578 Spanish work by Cristóbal Acosta, Tractado de las drogas, y medicinas de las Indias Orientales (Treatise of the drugs and medicines of the East Indies), highlight how indigenous knowledge was catalogued and circulated abroad.Soldier figurines replicate those found on a Dutch-donated oil lamp at Sri Krishnaswamy Temple after Colachel treaty, symbolising what Bayjoo calls a subtle psychological subjugation.Through earthy materials and poetic symbolism, the artist reconstructs a "path to the sea" — a route along which Kerala's spices, skills and cultural wealth once sailed away, leaving behind legacies that continue to shape the present.