As I unloaded my suitcase from the waterbus, I could hardly believe my luck. At 23, I was about to spend the summer of 2022 in Venice. The timing couldn’t have been better: the Art Biennale was back after the pandemic pause.
Often called “the Olympics of the art world”, the Biennale has defined international cultural prestige since 1895. Little did I know I would soon work closely with this exhibition, gaining insider access to this immense cultural machinery. For now, my priority was simpler: catching a glimpse of Timothée Chalamet at the Biennale’s film festival later that season.
In September 2025, after nearly a decade away from Kolkata, I returned to my city, expecting the familiar chaos and rhythm of the festive season. Distance, however, had given me new eyes. Neighbourhoods became open-air galleries, bamboo palaces rose overnight, and I was transported back to Venice: the reverent crowds, the spirit of curation, the blend of tradition and innovation. Yet wandering through these temporary cathedrals, each accessible to millions, I couldn’t help but think: if art is measured by scale, democratic participation, and cultural impact, the Venice Biennale doesn’t come close to Kolkata’s Durga Puja.
The Venice Biennale consists of two main parts: national pavilions, where countries showcase curated exhibitions in permanent buildings (mainly at the Giardini and Arsenale), and a central international exhibition curated by an appointed director. Running for six months from May to November, the term Biennale means “every two years” in Italian, with Venice alternating between art (odd years) and architecture (even years) editions.
Durga Puja combines art and architecture annually, compressing what Venice spreads across two years into 10 days of devotion and spectacle. Recognised by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage, it celebrates goddess Durga’s triumph over evil through thousands of neighbourhood pandals, each a temporary world built from scratch. In Kolkata alone, roughly 3,000 community pujas commission clay idols and construct ornate pandals that transform the cityscape.
Cities shaped by tides of trade and culture
Views of Venice
Whereas Venice’s permanent architecture houses temporary art, Kolkata creates temporary architecture to honour the eternal. Each autumn, pandals rise, dazzle the city, then dissolve into the Ganges. Impermanence isn’t limitation; it’s the entire point. Creation and dissolution form a living cycle, reminding us that art can be both fleeting and timeless.
Last week, devastating floods in Kolkata drew comparisons to Venice, but the connections run deeper than occasional submersion. Both are historic port cities, shaped by tides of trade and culture. Venice, linked to the Mediterranean, thrived on openness to strangers and exchange. Kolkata, at the Ganges’ mouth, absorbed influences from across the Indian Ocean. Amitav Ghosh, in Gun Island, entwines these routes of migration and imagination, connecting Bengal to Venice.
Yet each city stages its cultural exhibitions differently. Venice’s historical openness contrasts sharply with the exclusivity of the Biennale. Access is tightly regulated by institutional gatekeepers, tickets, and the cultivated taste required to navigate contemporary art, with entry starting at 25 euros.
I remember attending Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s exhibition of glass sculptures at the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, a historic church set apart on its own island in the Venetian lagoon. I had managed to secure a ticket through my employer. As I stepped inside, I felt both awe and intimidation.
Ai Weiwei’s glass exhibition in Venice
The works were haunting and complex, fractured objects like bones, organs, bats, and surveillance cameras suspended in a twisting cascade. Feeling overwhelmed, I drifted into the garden behind the basilica, where the Biennale’s launch party was in full swing. Surrounded by European aristocrats, curators, and the world’s art elite, I quickly realised I was the only person of colour aside from the waitstaff. Nervous about navigating polished conversations and social codes, I gulped champagne and snuck outside for a cigarette. A Bangladeshi waitress joined me. Her warm smile was my only genuine connection that evening.
This feeling of being an outsider stands in sharp contrast to Kolkata’s Durga Puja, a festival genuinely “open to all”. Anyone can walk into any pandal and join the celebration. Furthermore, the difference in scale is staggering.
Venice’s historic centre, home to fewer than 50,000 residents, draws around 800,000 visitors to the Biennale over seven months. In contrast, Durga Puja mobilises over 20 million people in just 10 days. The barriers are not economic or cultural, but logistical: patience for crowds, traffic, and the frenetic pace of the festival when normal rules are suspended. On these nights, social codes dissolve: families, friends, couples, and solo trekkers alike flow freely through illuminated streets, sharing art, devotion, and connection.
Institutional hierarchies versus community-driven ecosystem
The surrounding economies draw equally sharp contrasts. In Venice, gains flow through already established tourism infrastructure: luxury hotels, water taxis, and fine dining. Durga Puja, on the other hand, nourishes a much more decentralised, grassroots economy. Kumartuli’s clay sculptors, lighting technicians, auto-rickshaw drivers, food vendors, and corner sweet shops all find sustenance, powered not by institutions but by communities. Remarkably, this massive mobilisation happens without central coordination and is sustained by neighbourhood committees and community subscriptions.
The Biennale reflects an institutional hierarchy: national pavilions, curators, and market validators shaping global tastes and acquisitions. By contrast, Kolkata’s ecosystem is diffuse but just as intricate, with clay craftsmen, pandal decorators, and light artisans bringing innovation to traditions that have been around since centuries. Neighbourhoods are the nation-states of this ephemeral republic of art.
In both cities, art spills into the streets, transforming urban space into a gallery. Both generate profound economic reverberation, but through radically different models.
Having witnessed Venice’s international art machine, I can now see how Kolkata’s grandest festival has evolved with a global outlook while remaining rooted in the local. In a world where questions of cultural democracy and accessibility are emergent, Durga Puja can be reframed not just as a religious ritual, but as one of the world’s greatest art gatherings.
Kolkata, through its annual reinvention, has joined Venice on the global cultural map, proving that art prestige need not only emerge from Europe’s institutional frameworks but also from South Asia’s neighbourhood streets.
A few weeks before this year’s Puja got underway, I stepped onto a ferry along the Hooghly River as early morning mist curled over the water. Accompanied by a few friends, we were heading towards Kumartuli, the vibrant heart of Kolkata’s Durga Puja preparations, arriving just as the city began its annual transformation.
As the ferry cut through the ripples of the river, I felt the familiar thrill I had known in Venice three years earlier. The city itself was the gallery, the neighbourhoods the pavilions, the people both audience and curators. Kolkata was bursting with colour, creativity, and celebration, a sharp rebuke to the tired narrative of decay. Here, the art belonged to everyone, and everyone belonged to the art.