If Goa was a person, it would be a person with a schedule busier than a bee. With the IFFI fever dying down not less than a few weeks ago, mid-December has already arrived with a bus full of another spectacular and culturally rich event to the streets of Panjim.
The city has come alive once again with the launch of the fifth physical edition of the 9-day Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa. The festival is an initiative by the Serendipity Arts Foundation. This inter-disciplinary art festival began today (December 15) and will go on till December 23.
Staying true to its core values and propagating art and culture in the best way possible, the festival aims to bring people together to partake in art, culture, photography and more.
Spread across 14+ venues and 120+ programmes with 1000+ artists, the festival strives to create a sustainable, collective and collaborative platform to highlight the shared cultural heritage of South Asia for creating a global outreach.
All that goes into making the event successful and a seamless affair have been taken care of.
Free shuttle services from all the venues will be available; 300+ volunteers and art guides to help visitors with queries regarding the festival and registration requirements; special accessibility volunteers for the differently abled; emergency medical help and first aid on site, fire safety measure at all sites and free water stations available at all venues.
Hosted by Sunil Kant Munjal, founder patron of Serendipity Arts Foundation, the festival was inaugurated on Thursday by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.
Speaking on the occasion, Sawant said, “We are glad that Serendipity Arts Festival is back after a gap of two years. Goa is the melting pot for culture, and we want people to enjoy arts. While it is the responsibility of the state to boost tourism in Goa, we need foundations and patrons like Serendipity Arts and Munjal to provide impetus to the arts movement and to strengthen culture. I hope that this festival will inspire the arts community at large to make Panjim and Goa the cultural hub of the region.”
The inaugural gathering included eminent personalities from Goa, luminaries from the art industry, and this year’s festival curators representing culinary arts, exhibitions, talks and symposia, craft, music, dance, and theatre.
Serendipity Arts Festival promises to create an unforgettable experience, including exhibitions, culinary delights, craft, and music that will reflect Indian classical, fusion, folk, indie pop, rock, and other genres, to projects intersecting dance, drama, music, and storytelling and much, much more.
This year, the festival is more interdisciplinary in format and spread across exhibitions, performances, talks, workshops, public art projects, accessibility and children’s programmes. The curatorial line-up for this edition will include Bickram Ghosh, Ehsaan Noorani, Sudarshan Shetty, Veerangana Solanki, Pramod Kumar KG, Anjana Somany, Prahlad Sukhtankar, Mayuri Upadhya, Geeta Chandran and Quasar Thakore Padamsee.
"This year we are also trying to take interdisciplinarity to a different level. We have experimented with different forms and intersections, hoping it will leave a lasting impression on audiences and visitors,” Sunil Kant Munjal said.