With over 100 projects, the fourth edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival promises to make quality art across disciplines of visual arts, music, dance, craft, photography, theatre, and culinary arts more accessible to the public.
Touted to be India's first multi-disciplinary arts event, the annual festival will be held in the Goan capital of Panaji from December 15-22.
"The fourth edition is designed to create a balance between artistic rigour and accessibility of contemporary art to foster cultural development and showcasing performative, visual, and culinary practices supporting artists across South Asia," organisers said.
The event will see participation by over 1500 artists, who will be spearheaded by 14 curators -- Pramod KG, Kristine Michael (Craft), Aneesh Pradhan and Sneha Khanwalkar (Music), Atul Kumar and Arundhati Nag (Theatre), Leela Samson and Mayuri Upadhya (Dance), Rahul Akerkar and Prahlad Sukhtankar (Culinary Arts), Jyotindra Jain and Sudarshan Shetty (Visual Arts), Rahaab Allana and Ravi Agarwal (Photography).
"Working in close association with our curators and advisors, we will continue to broaden the creative and collaborative horizons of the festival to make it more interactive, immersive, innovative and accessible for everyone," said Sunil Kant Munjal, founder patron of the festival, said.
Highlights of this year's 'Visual Arts' discipline range from Shetty's curation emphasising the production of knowledge and innovation outside the framework of mainstream institutions, to 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.
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In the Photography section, exhibitions curated by 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.
Allana's trans-media curatorial project draws on the aesthetic ideologies and approaches to image-making and materiality as cultivated by the 20th century German art school Bauhaus, which celebrates 100 years in 2019, while looking at lens-based practices in South Asia.
The Dance discipline, curated by Samson and Upadhya, engages a vast range of traditional Indian dance forms, resulting in a seamless balance between music, dance and drama.
Samson's projects have a strong focus on gender and identity, while 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 Kumar and Nag this year claims to be more interactive in nature, with immersive 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', the 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 Pradhan and 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 and Michael will reinvent this year's Craft discipline with a fresh approach. While Pramod's project will examine the creation and making of Jamdani fabric in its weaving, choice of raw materials, patterns, designs and the end-product; 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 Akerkar and Sukhtankar, the culinary arts section will let visitors explore various aspects of sustainable living and practice.
With multiple workshops, collaborations and events focussing on local produce and regional flavours, the festival this year moves away from the traditional idea of food being just a means to sustenance, and proposes to discover the different possibilities it might hold.
Projects will be further activated by diverse collateral programming including panel discussions, children's programmes, and workshops for the differently-abled.
Also part of the event will be 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 others.
The week-long festival will be held across 10 venues in the city.