Serendipity Art Festival kicks off its spectacular ninth edition in Goa

Started in 2014, PhotoSpark is a weekly feature from your story With photos that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the previous 830 posts, we had a feature art festival, Cartoon Gallery. World Music Festival, Telecom Expo, millet fair, Climate Change Expo, wildlife convention, startup festival, diwali rangoli, and Jazz Festival.

Goa’s natural beauty – from land, sea and air – got a boost this week with the ninth edition of the aptly named Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF). This multi-disciplinary celebration of creativity is held every December in Goa, with a fascinating lineup of music, dance, visual arts, crafts, photography, film, theatre, and culinary arts.

The eight-day festival is a flagship initiative of Serendipity Arts, the Hero Group’s cultural development foundation that aims to promote new creative strategies, artistic interventions and cultural partnerships in South Asia and abroad. Its interventions help transform education, encourage community development and explore multi-disciplinarity in the arts.

Led by Sunil Kant Munjal of the Hero Group, SAF has become a major feature of the annual art calendar. More than 200 projects are featured in 22 venues this year, ensuring something fun for visitors of all ages (see our coverage of the past three editions of SAF here).

The story of the hero group is well captured in a fascinating book, The Making of Heroes: Four Brothers, Two Wheels and a Revolution That Shaped India. Check out our book reviews and author interviews.

“Serendipity Arts Festival aims to create breadth of offer and depth of offer. It is unusual for people to get exposure to interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary arts in one place. So this is a theme that continues in all editions of SAF,” explains Sunil Kant Munjal. your story

There are renowned curators for each SAF track: dance (Geeta Chandran, Jayachandran Palazhi), visual arts (Veerangana Solanki; Thukral and Tagra), music (Jubin Balaporia, Vikram Ghosh), and access (Salil Chaturvedi).

Anusha Murthy and Elizabeth York, co-founders of Edible Issues, curated the culinary section, while Quasar Thakor Padamsi and Shankar Venkateswaran were the theater curators. The handicraft exhibition was curated by Sandeep Sangaru and Christine Michael.

“There is an incredible amount of great work going on in craft documentation, product development, marketing, and providing resources for craft groups. However, unless the creativity comes from the craftsman himself to invent and imagine Not coming, and not relying on external facilitators, only then will real change be evident,” explains curator Christine Michael.

She urges crafters to be respected as creative powerhouses, not just vendors with skills and knowledge of materials and techniques. “Post-Covid, the importance of handicrafts has changed drastically, and corporates are also looking at crafts like pottery to create a balanced life in their workforce,” she observes.

Next year, in its 10th year, SAF has announced plans to go international. Its international debut will be in the UK, and the festival will also take place in London and Birmingham.

In this photo essay, we show some highlights from Multiplay, Food Lab, Mould, Ladakh Ingenuity, Panjim Cube Factory, Foundry, and other locations. Art Park featured bands like Merak and Stitch in Nine with a mix of acoustic and electronic sounds. Five AI artists and interactive exhibits at the AI ​​MiniLab showcased the cutting edge of technology-driven creativity.

“On Food Issues, The Future of Food is a tool we use to interrogate the intersections of culture, climate, and identity. Engaging with experts in food systems, exchanging ideas, and collaborating with them has deepened our passion for this work,” enthuses Anusha Murthy.

Co-founder Elizabeth York added, “It has also been incredibly reassuring to witness the dedication of so many remarkable people committed to building a better food system in India.

Through the theme Cultures of our food futureThe pair hosts workshops and talks that explore how food is shaped by migration, biodiversity, and evolving culinary identities.

A very popular musical feature of SAF is the Nadi Raga – an hour-long performance of Indian classical music on a sunset river cruise. Featured artists included Mayank Bedekar (tabla) with Anupama Bhagwat (sitar), and Ujjaini Mukherjee (vocals) with Anay Gadgil (keyboards).

“Tickets for The River Raga were sold first. There is a huge crowd for it, the audience is clearly loving this classical music with soul and warmth and in such a fantastic atmosphere,” observed Music Co-Curator Vikram Ghosh.

One of the musical highlights at SAF was a concert by One World, featuring Lou Majaw, Warren Mendonsa, Pratika Gopinath and members of Indus Creed. Their powerful songs appealed to humanity to return to unity, peace and harmony. Their blend of rock, folk and Indian classical elements showed the power of music to cross cultural divides.

“There has been a resurgence of live concerts in India this year, which is very rewarding to watch. There is also a better understanding and acceptance of crossover music from both the Western and Indian classical worlds,” explains Zubin Balaporia, music co-curator.

During the conversation with your story Munjal also stopped to reflect on the legacy of late tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, whose untimely death during the week of SAF sent shockwaves around the world.

“Last year, on the 15th of December, our inaugural program was with Ustad Zakir Hussian. He was a very simple person on the one hand, but also a wonderfully inquisitive mind,” says Munjal.

“Real life gives you everything – things of great joy and things of sorrow and sadness, and we have to accept both,” he adds.

SAF’s music co-curator Vikram Ghosh also expressed grief over the death of the tabla legend.

“I knew Zakir Hussain all my life, we lived in the same house in San Rafael, USA for many years. It is a great loss to have him with us for so long – an artist like him comes only once in hundreds of years,” Ghosh himself is a renowned tabla artist.

“Zakir Hussain was a great maestro of tabla, one of India’s greatest global ambassadors, and an artist who collaborated with any culture,” signed off Ghosh.

what now you Done today to pause your busy schedule and use your creative side for a better world?

(All photos taken on location at SAF 2024 by Madanmohan Rao.)