The Kochi-Muziris Biennale is an international exhibition of contemporary art held in Kochi, Kerala. It was the first biennale of its kind to be held in India. The Kochi-Muziris Biennale is an initiative of the Kochi-Biennale Foundation with support from the Government of Kerala. The exhibition is set in spaces across Kochi, Muziris, and surrounding islands, with shows being held in existing galleries, halls,and site-specific installations in public spaces, heritage buildings, and disused structures. It is an event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such, the term was popularised by the Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895.

In May 2010, Mumbai-based contemporary artists of Kerala origin, Bose Krishnamachari and Riyaz Komu, were approached by the then culture minister of Kerala, M.A. Baby, to start an international art project in the state. Acknowledging the lack of an international platform for contemporary art in India, Bose and Riyas proposed the idea of a biennale (a large-scale international exhibition) in Kochi on the lines of the Venice Biennale.

‘Makaan’ is about telling the story of the construction worker community through one’s family struggle. Their ups and downs as they navigate their daily lives are puddled with economic and social hurdles. The narrative of the film juxtaposes similar situations. It expresses differences in the way of responding through the perspectives of children and the elderly, where the children transform the hard reality. In their games, leaves are turned into money, and a ten rupee note becomes a butterfly. The film also tries to capture the essence of "workers" and their struggle in today’s modern time.

The project aims to facilitate English language learning in resource-constrained environments. It aims at making the language more familiar where it is largely alien and enabling engagement with it outside the ‘English classroom’.

One of the key ideas chosen in this project is to improve engagement through games that reflect and are sensitive to the socio-cultural and geographical landscape of the said environment. Expanding the current ongoing project LETS (Learn English Through Stories) through a different approach and making grammar learning intuitive and fun is the main focus of this project.

A traditional classroom environment doesn’t provide much scope for teachers to try different ways of teaching. The population of students and the lack of availability of designed materials that would work for both teachers and students are two of the major constraints. When it comes to learning a second language (SL), the situation is even worse. The project "Can game-play aid structural understanding of language?" aims at facilitating ways of learning and teaching structural English (grammar) in a traditional classroom environment, where English is a second language.

The topic chosen in the grammar teaching is tenses, and the idea is to design a pedagogy that works for both teachers and students. The developed method (pedagogy) begins with a card game that facilitates pattern learning within tenses.

This is followed by a classroom activity designed to reinforce the acquired pattern. The third and final part of the design is a planned lesson (instructional design) to communicate the meaning of the overall concept.

A series of experiments were conducted with a group of 18 students in grades 6 and 7, and the designed materials were tested, improved, and then evaluated on the basis of the qualitative results of those experiments. The report further contains a detailed view of the testing with materials and their iterations. The results show an increase in the level of engagement of the students with the topic. It also indicates a jump in the quality of their ability to look for and find patterns in the materials given to them.

This project expands the boundaries of the ongoing LETS (Learn English Through Stories) project under the Tata Centre for Technology and Design, using games and planned lessons to teach structural English, thereby making grammar learning intuitive and fun.