VIP EXPERIENCE

About Serendipity Arts Foundation

Serendipity Arts Foundation is an organisation that facilitates pluralistic cultural expressions, sparking conversations around the arts across the South Asian region. Committed to innovation and creativity, the aim of the Foundation is to support practice and research in the arts, as well as to promote sustainability and education in the field through a range of cultural and collaborative initiatives. The Foundation hosts projects through the year, which include institutional partnerships with artists and art organisations, educational initiatives, grants and outreach programmes across India.

About Serendipity Arts Festival

Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF) is one of the largest multi-disciplinary arts initiatives in the South Asian region. It spans the visual, performing and culinary arts, whilst exploring genres with film, live arts, literature and fashion. Besides the core content, which is conceptualised by an eminent curatorial panel, the Festival has various layers of programming, in the form of educational initiatives, workshops, special projects, and institutional engagements. Through active conversations between the artistic community and the urban, social landscape, the festival continues to evolve around the mandate of making art visible and accessible. The festival seeks collaborations at its core, inspiring new perspectives of seeing and experiencing. The Festival is a cultural experiment that also addresses issues such as arts education, patronage culture, interdisciplinary discourse, inclusivity and accessibility of the arts. The fourth edition of Serendipity Arts Festival will take place in Panaji, Goa from 15-22 December 2019.

Registration

The main Welcome & Registration Desk will be located at the Old Goa Medical College. This will be your primary contact point for any information, queries or assistance, although there will be registration desks across venues.

Vernissage and Opening Party for the Festival

14 December

A preview of the exhibitions, followed by a reception party hosted by Mr. Sunil K. Munjal.

VIP Privileges

In Goa, hospitality comes first. We take pride in assisting our guests in each aspect of their travel to and stay in Panjim, and will be glad to discuss your vision for the trip. The Festival celebrates art practices across disciplines, and we look forward to customising the programme as per your interests—besides sharing Panjim’s best-kept food secrets!

As a registered VIP, you will gain access to:

- VIP Lounge and Exclusive Dinners- Transport and Itinerary Assistance- Curated walks and events- On-ground support and assistance

You can register by visiting the VIP Registration Webpage on our portal: http://www.serendipityartsfestival.com/vip

or write to us at apoorva@serendipityarts.org | rsvp@serendipityarts.org

Explore Panjim

Serendipity Arts Festival covers the expanse of Panjim, along the banks of the river Mandovi, and slightly farther afield. Celebrating the distinct architectural heritage and key public sites of the city, exhibitions, performances and experiences curated for the Festival are rooted in itinerant and enduring structures of Panjim. A list of past venues spanning across the 4km radius between Panjim and Ribander include:

- Old Goa Institute of Management- PWD Complex- Santa Monica Jetty- Adil Shah Palace- Children’s Art Park

- The Promenade- The GMC- Kala Academy- DB Ground

Visual Arts & Photography Exhibitions

15-22 December

Work in Progress [working title]Curated by Sudarshan Shetty

This project aims to present indigenous inventions and informal industries that have origins in catering to real-life circumstantial needs with lasting social impact on communities at large. The exhibition will highlight the need to support and nurture various indigenous approaches for the production of knowledge that sits outside the framework of mainstream institutions, and bring forth the organic evolutions or trajectories of institutions that are mainly dependent on alternate transmission of knowledge.

Image Journeys: The Conquest of the World as PictureCurated by Dr. Jyotindra Jain

The exhibition offers a critical viewing of popular Indian imagery at the turn of the 20th century in the construction of its social and national identities. This includes approximately 200 images and objects, including 19th and 20th century engravings, chromolithographs, oleographs, photographs, calendars, trade and product labels, postcards, film posters, textiles and porcelain figures.

Counter-Canon Counter-Culture: Alternative Histories of Indian ArtSpecial Project curated by Nancy Adajania

The history of postcolonial Indian art is usually told from within the confines of the art world, as a sequence of long-lived styles and short-lived movements, avant-garde aspirations and institutional trends, artist groups and art schools. This exhibition will celebrate the many alternative histories of being, doing and making together, of experiment and collaboration, which arose from diverse locations: trade fairs, inter-disciplinary workshops, activist collectives, documentary cinema, underground film-making, design and architecture schools, and youth subcultures.

Virtuality as RealitySpecial Project curated by Jessica Castex & Odile Burluraux

An exhibition showcasing a selection from the video acquisitions of the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris. The pre-existing opposition between these two approaches, of reality and virtuality, tends to blend. Images, evolving towards digital and an oppressive ubiquity, conduct us to think over representation. Video makers take over this conflict in order to use it, to question it and subvert it.

Imagined DocumentsCurated by Ravi Agarwal

Looking at the staged photograph that moves swiftly between reality and fiction, the show aims to focus on works that employ various sorts of strategies and techniques to tell their story. These could involve recreating scenes from memory, constructing elaborate sets, or telling personal encounters.

Look, Stranger!Curated by Rahaab Allana

Look, Stranger! is a trans-media curatorial project that draws on the aesthetic ideologies and approaches to image-making and materiality as cultivated by the Bauhaus, which celebrates 100 years in 2019. The project will travel across South Asia (and its diaspora) in search of emerging lens-based practitioners working with photography, film and new media to explore questions of community and detachment, belonging and place. Echoing the eponymous Auden poem, Look, Stranger! is an opportunity to explore evolving relationships between the self and world through experimental forms.

Symposia

15 December

Look, Stranger! SeminarCurated by Rahaab Allana

A seminar linked to the exhibition of the same name, comprising a series of conversations with the advisors of the project, including Ranjit Hoskote, Sharmini Pereira, Sam Stourdzé, Mark Sealy, Clara Kim, Yasufumi Nakamori and Shahidul Alam.

16-17 December

Of Other Places: Exploring Placemaking in Sites of Cultural Production Serendipity Arts Foundation in association with Zain Masud & Godrej India Culture Lab

A two-day series of panel discussions and conversations around the following questions: What is the relationship between the intervention and its geographic and cultural location? Do these interventions produce meaningful interlocutions in the prevailing urban fabric—what is the mandate, and from where does it emanate? We hope to engage with institutions, museums, biennales and festivals from around the world.

18-20 December

Connecting Realities: Documentary Performance PracticesCurated by Anuja Ghosalkar & Kai Tuchmann

A three-day symposium that aims to be a dialogue between varied practitioners—theatre makers, academics, visual artists, experimental filmmakers, sociologists and archivists who grapple with notions of reality, fiction, falseness, history and truth in their artistic practice.

Craft Exhibitions

15-22 December

Kindling Change: Fired Material Design Interventions in Ceramics and Glass for Living Sustainable CraftCurated by Kristine Michael

This exhibition is an attempt to uncover a hidden narrative of transnational modernism in ceramics within a national art history, which negotiates the modern with the indigenous or traditional through a vast and varied terrain of aesthetic production post-independence in India.

Shadow PlaySpecial Project curated by Anurupa Roy

An immersive shadow puppetry exhibition delving in the para cultures of anti-heroes in Indian mythology. The realm of shadow puppetry interspersed with animation will be showcased alongside puppetry workshops.

Music

15 December

Dhun MelaCurated by Aneesh Pradhan

Folk songs sung in different languages across India reflect the cultural diversity that has always existed in the country. Richly layered, they bring to us contexts and meanings from distant regions that seem to magically resonate with our own circumstances/reality. They will be performed by musicians from various regions. Musical accompaniment will be provided by their respective traditional ensembles.

15-22 December

River RagaCurated by Aneesh Pradhan

A favourite of the audiences, given the success of the last editions of the River Raga project, this edition of the Festival revisits the classical musical concerts taking place on a ferry sunset along the river Madovi.

16 December

Louiz BanksCurated by Sneha Khanwalkar

An evening of jazz with Louis Banks, the Godfather of Indian jazz!

17 December

Daastan LIVECurated by Sneha Khanwalkar

Dastaan LIVE is an art-rock project that brings together the world of the aural and the visual to deliver a one-of-a-kind immersive experience for audiences.

20 December

SadarangCurated by Aneesh Pradhan

Sadarang is the pen name of the Hindustani musical composer and artist Niyamat Khan, who was active in the 17th century. This performance will highlight the melodic, rhythmic and poetic variety in Sadarang’s compositions, and the manner that they are interpreted by musicians today.

21 December

Shye Ben Tzur & The Rajasthan ExpressCurated by Sneha Khanwalkar

A unique collaboration between Israeli musician Shye Ben Tzur and Rajasthani musicians and singers.

Dance

15 December

Padams by Bragha BessellCurated by Leela Samson

A Padam refers to an emotive form of musical composition which is part of a traditional Bharatanatyam repertoire, often delineating sringara, or ‘erotic love’. This series of padams will be performed by renowned Bharatnatyam danseuse and teacher, Bragha Bessell.

15-16 December

Dance & Fairytales [working title]Curated by Mayuri Upadhya

An adaptation of well known fairytales, with audience participation and interaction.

16 December

Reflections of Time: Red Dress WaaliCurated by Mayuri Upadhya

A powerful solo performance by Diya Naidu exploring the artist’s response to the brutal crimes against women in India.

20 December

Folk Forms of Tamil NaduCurated by Leela Samson

A representation of the various dance forms of Tamil Nadu, including Mayil Attam, Kummi, Kai Silambu Attam and Karakattam among others.

21 December

Pureliya Saraikela ChhauCurated by Leela Samson

A semi classical Indian dance form with martial, tribal and folk traditions, originating from the eastern states of India, namely West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha.

Theatre

15-16 December

Sounding VanyaCurated by Atul Kumar

Taking inspiration from Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, this play will be based on musings, where actors double up as different characters to narrate numerous stories.

19 December

Table RadicaCurated by Atul Kumar

An immersive experience of memoirs with food, found documents and music, based on the life of playwright, poet, theatre director and actor, Habib Tanvir.

21-22 December

The Choir ProjectCurated by Atul Kumar

An immersive theatrical experience that brings to light the power of the human voice. The performance stands poised at the crossroads that separate the performing arts from performance art.

22 December

Eidgah ke JinnatCurated by Atul Kumar

This play is the Hindi version of director and playwright Abhishek Majumdar’s contemporary classic The Djinns of Eidgah. Interweaving true stories and testimonies with Islamic storytelling, this hard-hitting play showcases the story of a radicalised generation of youth in Kashmir and how things become difficult for them, thanks to the troubled state of affairs in this picturesque Valley.

Culinary Arts

16 December

Chef’s Legacy: Chef Thomas ZachariasCurated by Rahul Akerkar

Chef Thomas Zacharias of Bombay Canteen will conduct a workshop on the growing Indian food movement.

20 December

Mahua WorkshopCurated by Prahlad Sukhtankar

A workshop exploring the different ways to use mahua, an indigenous plant with edible, fleshy flowers, often fermented to make local toddy.

22 December

Edible Archives Workshop: Indigenous Rice VarietiesCurated by Prahlad Sukhtankar

The Edible Archives Project aims to showcase the sheer range of rice varieties grown in India, and throw the spotlight specifically on those which have almost vanished from the country’s foodscape or are grown only in small communities.

Other Events

Curated Dinners for VIPs

There will be a series of exclusive dinners for our VIP guests curated by Chef Prahlad Sukhtankar at his new restaurant Black Market. These will most likely be on the opening weekend of the Festival. Dates will be confirmed shortly.

15-22 December

Everyday Ecology

The Travelling Dome will conduct ecology walks around Panjim city. The region lies in the midst of rivers, beaches, wetlands, mangroves, creeks and springs. This fascinating watershed area supports a variety of plants, birds, reptiles and aquatic creatures. Participants will visit different ecosystems to experience its rich biodiversity and to understand the vital ‘eco services’ they provide.