22 venues, 200 projects: This festival in Goa delights art lovers across the spectrum
In our second photo essay from the Serendipity Arts Festival, we showcase more highlights from this major cultural celebration, along with curator insights.
Launched in 2014, PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the earlier 830 posts, we featured an art festival, cartoon gallery. world music festival, telecom expo, millets fair, climate change expo, wildlife conference, startup festival, Diwali rangoli, and jazz festival.
The ninth edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF) in Goa celebrates the beauty and impact of art across the spectrum: craft, photography, visual arts, music, dance, film, theatre, and culinary arts. See our coverage of the past three editions of SAF here.
An initiative of the Hero Group’s Serendipity Arts Foundation, the festival offers a broad and deep exposure to multidisciplinary arts. There are expert curators for each of the tracks, along with walkthroughs of the exhibits for those interested in the fascinating backstories.
“The nine editions of the festival confirm our original view that if people get the opportunity, more people will engage with the arts,” Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman of Hero Enterprise and Founder of SAF, tells YourStory.
The festival also has a strong emphasis on audience engagement and education through interactive installations and workshops.
“Art is something you can do yourself, not just something which others do and you watch or listen. SAF has workshops on so many art forms for people of all ages. We also have academics, researchers and intellectuals offering their rich insights,” Munjal adds.
Overall, these features make the festival experience more complete and wholesome. “Something stays back with you after the festival. It also makes you think a little bit, and that is part of our attempt,” he says.
In this photo essay, we showcase some highlights from many of the SAF venues: Old GMC Complex, ESG Building, Art Park, Directorate of Accounts, Excise Building, Samba Square, Azad Maidan, and Nagalli Hills Arena.
Musicians play a tremendously important role in promoting harmony in society, according to SAF’s music co-curator Zubin Balaporia. He is a founding member and keyboard player for the rock band Indus Creed.
“It is particularly important for senior musicians in the field to step up. With our band, Indus Creed, we have taken a conscious decision to try and promote young talent whenever we can. It is our little way of giving back,” he affirms.
At SAF, he brought to stage a choir from the Happy Home and School for the Blind, along with their jazz pianist Nitesh. “We opened SAF with One World, a peace initiative concert that I have conceptualised,” Balaporia adds.
Music co-curator Bickram Ghosh, an eminent tabla artiste and composer, observes a rise in the popularity of Indian classical music. “People who say youth are drifting away from this music are absolutely wrong. Indian classical music is on a very good wicket right now,” he explains.
Listeners love Indian classical music. “They are finding a part of their natural being in that music. They are tired of hearing music that has no soul,” he adds.
While music for dance is certainly popular, there is much more to music. “Music is also meant to be listened to deeply, to internalise and imbibe with your feelings intertwined with the music,” Ghosh says.
As trends in the food space, Anusha Murthy and Elizabeth Yorke, co-founders of Edible Issues, point to the emphasis on sustainability and reducing food waste as well as the resurgence of regional and indigenous ingredients.
“Our workshops like Don’t Scrap That! and Waste-to-Value sessions show participants how to explore innovative ways for repurposing kitchen scraps into valuable resources,” Yorke explains.
Sessions like Secret Market Walk and Crisis Cuisine: Adapting Food for Resilience dive into the local food culture of Goa. “We discuss ways to adapt traditional knowledge for modern challenges,” Murthy adds.
Crafts curator Kristine Michael observes that crafts marketing post-COVID-19 and online sales using social media are very different phenomena as compared to the earlier community-based sales of traditional crafts. Digital access and global awareness have changed craft activities locally and internationally in terms of product design, marketing, and trends.
“Sociologically, the crafts community’s family unit is changing with more opportunities and education. Craft has always responded to change and new influences,” Michael signs off.
Now what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule and harness your creative side for a better world?
Anuja Dasgupta
Anupama Bhagwat (sitar) and Mayank Bedekar (tabla)
Roz Angon
(All photographs were taken by Madanmohan Rao on location at SAF 2024.)