Serendipity Arts Festival (6th edition)

The 6^th edition of Serendipity Arts Festival, scheduled between the 15^th to 23^rd of December 2023 in Panjim, Goa will once again bring together a diverse array of creative energies.  Anchored with the mandate of making art accessible to everyone, the programming of the nine-day inter-disciplinary festival rests on the pillars of creating an environment of engagement, participation and amplifying local interaction, with a key focus on supporting artists and creative expressions from the South Asian region.

Since its inception, the festival has established itself as a platform for creative exchange across the artistic spectrum. Being an engagement-driven, public arts outreach initiative, the festival will focus on bringing together traditional and contemporary, multidisciplinary arts practices, through dynamic programming, consisting of projects curated by a line-up of eminent curators and long-term collaborators. With each edition, the festival has been exploring disruptive programming, collaborations and special projects that reflect the sociocultural dynamics of South Asia’s changing landscape.

Spanning across disciplines of the Performing, Visual, Culinary and Performance Arts and Craft, this year’s curators will be marrying the rich tapestry of traditional and folk cultures with the contemporary idiom, with an aim to reimagine and recreate a visual vocabulary across the arts

Serendipity Arts Festival’s endeavour has always been to make the arts – in all its form — accessible to all while ensuring the programming informs and engages the audience in a meaningful manner. Spread across multiple venues, important cultural spaces such as the Old GMC Complex, the Art Park, and Nagalli Hills Ground, among others will be home to creative stimulation.

A significant highlight of this year’s programming is the focus on giving South Asian artists a platform to amplify their voices and creating a community where young minds can engage, ideate, and co-create.

Speaking about the upcoming edition, Ms. Smriti Rajgarhia, Director, Serendipity Arts Foundation & Festival said, “The festival’s core philosophy is rooted in the belief of making art accessible and a part of people’s life. Each year, our programming is structured around exploring new ways of engagement, amplifying young voices, engaging with local culture, revisiting history and presenting it with a new perspective.”

The curation line-up of the 6^th edition brings together a diverse set of individuals. Sandeep Kumar Sangaru and Anjana Somany will be curating the section on Craft. Quasar Thakore Padamsee who curated last year’s theatre section of the festival is back to helm the Theatre segment of the festival that will showcase an eclectic selection of plays. Food is an indispensable aspect of the festival, and for this edition, Chef Thomas Zacharias and The Locavore Team, will take visitors through a gastronomical journey that ties people and cultures. Bickram Ghosh along with Ricky Kej will curate the Music section with a wide range of concerts covering diverse genres. Geeta Chandran and Mayuri Upadhya will put together classical, experimental, and contemporary dance performances and workshops. The Visual Arts curators for this edition will be Veeranganakumari Solanki and Vidya Shivadas.

The 6th edition of the festival will also feature a set of special curators including Zubin Balaporia (Music), Elizabeth Yorke & Anusha Murthy with Edible Issues, who be the special curators for culinary arts, while Bhagyashree Patwardhan will return to curate a project around local Goan design practices. There will be additions to the list of special curators closer to the festival.

Spread across multiple venues in Panjim and around Goa, the festival will also continue to be a celebration of community with region-specific projects, as well as workshops for people with special needs, as well as a dedicated segment with children’s programmes. The festival is an amalgamation of creative collaborations with cultural institutions and cultural departments of foreign embassies. In addition to Institut Français (India), Pro Helvetia, and the British Council as project partners, the festival is expecting to showcase more projects brought in collaboration with other cultural institutions. 

The official hashtag for the 6^th Serendipity Arts Festival is #CometogetheratSAF, as a sign of celebration and sharing of a vision that has been widely supported. Along with this the Festival is going to host a brand-new website, which will be the first interface for all festival visitors, this year. The website will carry all information with venue and project details, including the registration links. For ease of navigation at Serendipity Arts Festival 2023 and to manage the itineraries at the festival the website comes with features that one can use to add individual events into their personal digital calendars.

To know more please visit www.serendipityartsfestival.com