Serendipity Arts Festival to be held in Goa in mid December

The Serendipity Arts Festival 2019 is India’s first multi-disciplinary arts event committed to creating tangible change across the country’s cultural spectrum by engaging the public and increasing awareness of how art can impact society, whilst generating interest in public art projects across India.

Highlights of this year’s visual arts discipline range from Sudarshan Shetty’s curation emphasising the production of knowledge and innovation outside the framework of mainstream institutions, to Dr. Jyotindra Jain’s project, which offers critical viewing of popular Indian imagery at the turn of the 20th century in the construction of its social and national identities, according to information received here.

In the photography section, exhibitions curated by Ravi Agarwal will explore the concept of staged photography that flits between reality and fiction, focusing on works that employ various sorts of strategies and techniques to tell a story. Rahaab Allana’s trans-media curatorial project draws on the aesthetic ideologies and approaches to image-making and materiality as cultivated by the Bauhaus, which celebrates 100 years in 2019, while looking at lens-based practices in South Asia.

The Dance discipline, curated by Leela Samson and Mayuri Upadhya engages a vast range of traditional Indian dance forms, resulting in a seamless balance between music, dance and drama. Leela Samson’s projects have a strong focus on gender and identity, while Mayuri Upadhya’s projects emphasise the power of imagination through dance and storytelling, as well as contemporary forms of dance such as hip hop.

Theatre performances curated by Atul Kumar and Arundhati Nag this year are more interactive in nature, with immersive theatrical experiences through the use of alternate spaces, creating interventions in public spaces and offering the audience new ways of creating a dialogue. Exploring the idea of ‘Home’, this year’s projects will also include a series of productions introducing toddlers and infants to the theatre and will also feature collateral events highlighting the creative presence of marginalised communities.

The Music discipline curated by Aneesh Pradhan and Sneha Sneha Khanwalkar will explore the gamut of musical traditions in India, as well as their sources of inspiration. The stage will be set for a range of concerts featuring international collaborations and home-grown talent. In addition, there will be unique sound experiences across venues that showcase the cross-currents between sound, visuals, space and technology.

Pramod Kumar KG and Kristine Michael curators for this year’s Craft discipline will have a fresh approach as compared to previous editions. Pramod’s project will examine the creation and making of Jamdani fabrics, both in its weaving, choice of raw materials, patterns, designs and the end-product. Kristine Michael’s project will discuss artistic modernism in contemporary ceramics and glass-making practices in India in response to the growing interest and global recognition of non-Western craft.

Curated by Rahul Akerkar and Prahlad Sukhtankar, in the culinary arts section of the Festival, visitors will explore various aspects of sustainable living and practice in the Culinary Arts section. With multiple workshops, collaborations and events with a focus on local produce and regional flavours, the Festival moves away from the idea of food being a means to sustenance and discovers the different possibilities of food.

Projects will be further activated by diverse collateral programming including panel discussions, children’s programmes and workshops for the differently-abled. These initiatives are an integral part of the Foundation’s key mission of making the arts accessible and developing arts audiences both in numbers and in diversity. Unique activations in the core disciplines of Craft, Culinary Arts, Music, Photography, Visual Arts, Dance and Theatre, intend to invigorate dissipating and marginalised traditional art forms, whilst the more contemporary projects will address significant social issues.

With over 100 immersive projects by over 1500 artists, this year, the Festival will take place across 10 venues in Panaji, Goa highlighting the seven core disciplines including Craft, Culinary Arts, Dance, Music, Theatre, Visual Arts and Photography.

The projects this year will be accompanied by a series of special projects curated by Nancy Adajania, Anurupa Roy, HH Art Spaces, Harkat Studios, St+art India Foundation, Aradhana Seth and Vidya Shivadas, among several others.