Of creativity and expression

TGLife

It’s a festival for all. From the art and craft lovers to the common man on the street, there’s something for everyone on the platter of Serendipity Arts Festival that has now rooted itself in the Goan soil, is a multi-disciplinary arts event held annually every December in Goa. This year the third edition of Serendipity will take place from 15-22 December. 

Curated by a panel of eminent artists and institutional figures, the festival is a long-term cultural project that hopes to instigate positive change across the arts in India on a large scale. Spanning the visual, performing and culinary arts, the festival’s programming includes music, dance, visual arts, craft, photography, film and theatre. The festival addresses pressing social issues such as arts education and pedagogy, cultural patronage, interdisciplinary discourse, and accessibility to the arts. Serendipity Arts Festival’s intensive programme of exhibitions and performances is energised by spaces for social and educational engagement. 

Being India’s first multi-disciplinary art and crafts festival, this year’s event offers over 90 dynamic projects highlighting India’s rich traditions of music, dance and theatre, alongside culinary arts, craft, and visual arts exhibitions will be on display. In addition they will also be accompanied by a series of special projects including St+art Goa curated by St+art India Foundation, Out of Turn curated by Asia Art Archive and Meenakshi Thirukode and a Film Programme curated by Sabeena Gadihoke.

Alongside the more traditional disciplines of music, visual arts, theatre and dance, Serendipity also celebrates craft and artisan art forms which are physical and tangible products of human creativity, not usually associated with the ‘high art’ invested with cultural significance in our society.

Curated by Dr Annapurna Garimella, a Delhi-based designer and art historian, and Rashmi Varma, the craft projects’ focus this year will be on local Goan crafts that will be displayed in a specially designed architectural structure, in continuation of one of last year’s projects. The exploration of everyday objects brings to light their histories and the status of Indian handicraft in the present time, encouraging an equal collaboration between designers and craftspeople.

Another hallmark of the festival is the ‘Serendipity Barefoot School of Craft’- a unique architectural project that was initiated in the previous edition of the festival. The first stage was accomplished by creating a vision, through the selection of fifteen models in an architectural competition, which were displayed at Serendipity Arts Festival, 2017. This year, a residency in Goa with the architects, which took place from 9–21 May, made it possible to turn the vision into a design for a pavilion that will function as a talking, working and collaborative space, bringing together architects, craftspeople, students and visitors. The pavilion will serve as a space for the local community to make and buy products of historic and new Goan crafts. The programme which begins in December will end in January 2019, with workshops, pedagogical talks and discussions taking place every week.

Serendipity Arts Foundation, a Munjal initiative for creativity, is a not-for-profit arts and cultural development foundation that fosters cultural development and supports emerging artists across South Asia. It aims to promote new creative strategies, artistic interventions, and cultural partnerships which are responsive, addressing the social, cultural and environmental milieu of South Asia. Its programmes foster innovative collaborations with partners across a multitude of fields, impacting education, social growth via community development programmes.