KASHI/LIGHT: City as Sensorium | Banaras Biennale 2026

There is a Banaras beyond the familiar
The Biennale begins there

The inaugural CII Banaras Biennale takes Banaras as both its setting and its subject: a city where art, material practice, music, scholarship and everyday cultural life have evolved through centuries of exchange.

Across collections, archives, workshops, institutions and public spaces, the Biennale brings inherited forms of knowledge into conversation with contemporary artistic practice — asking not simply what survives from the past, but how culture
continues to be made in the present.

CURATORS

Gayatri Sinha
Lead Curator

Pramod Kumar KG
Textiles & Crafts

Anjan Chakraverty
Jnana Pravaha

EXPLORE

27 November – 1 December

PROGRAMME

Full programme

Morning

Collections unveiled

Bharat Kala Bhavan

Afternoon

Curated museum walks

Bharat Kala Bhavan

Afternoon

Food Festival & Handicraft Haat

Namo Ghat

Further participants and session timings will be announced as the programme develops. Please check individual listings before planning your visit.

02 Dec - 31 Dec
Stay with the exhibitions

Exhibitions continue through December as indicated in individual listings. Preview Week brings together the opening programme; each venue has its own access arrangements.

Translucent Dacca malmal cloth in the Jnana-Pravaha collection

Look closer · Jnana Pravaha

Collections at
Jnana Pravaha

Jnana Pravaha’s museum opened in 1999 with Suresh Neotia’s personal collection. Paintings, textiles and objects now offer ways to follow changing materials, tastes and uses across regions.

Begin with a length of malmal: its transparency makes the structure of the cloth part of what we see.

Bharat Kala Bhavan

The collection, reconsidered.

Selected museum reserves and contemporary enquiry invite a closer look at the histories held within the museum.

A historical image depicting the architecture of Banaras

Film · Preview Week

Banaras on screen.

The Film Festival adds moving images to the ways visitors can encounter the city during Preview Week.

Weave Your Thread Into The Tapestry Of Banaras

Ek Dhaaga, Ek Duniya

Ek Dhaaga, Ek Duniya invites visitors to enter the Biennale through a simple material act: a thread offered, chosen and added to a growing collective work.

Learn more

BEYOND 2026

The central intent of the CII Banaras Biennale is to highlight Varanasi's extraordinary architectural heritage, artisanal traditions, and histories of painting and sculpture while strengthening the city's visual arts ecosystem. CII will launch the Varanasi Healthy Weavers Initiative, addressing gaps in primary healthcare and the growing burden of non-communicable diseases and geriatric health among weaving communities. The programme will focus on the identified weaving clusters of Ramnagar, Lohta and Badi Bazar, benefiting an estimated 4,000–5,000 weavers and their families.

The Biennale will also serve as a platform for long-term skills and employment initiatives in Varanasi and eastern UP. These include the establishment of the CII Artisan Skill Training Institute, with Varanasi as the anchor hub and planned centres in Bhadohi, Mirzapur, Chandauli and Azamgarh; a CII Model Career Centre, developed in collaboration with the Employment Exchange; and the CII E2EE Career Lounge at BHU, an industry-led career development centre created through a partnership with BHU.