Serendipity Arts announces plans for 2024
The ninth edition of Serendipity Arts Festival will be held at Panaji in Goa from December 15 to December 22
Serendipity Arts announces plans for 2024
New Delhi: South Asia’s largest interdisciplinary cultural event Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF) 2024 has announced the curatorial line up for the ninth edition of the festival which is scheduled in Panaji from December 15 to December 22, 2024.
The eclectic set of curators is tasked with the mandate of investigating the possibilities of marrying varied art forms together, pushing their creative boundaries and bringing inclusivity and diversity to the heart of their curatorial ideation.
In addition to this, the SAF aims to build a robust ecosystem by focusing more on working with local communities and integrating accessibility to various aspects of the Festival. There is also focus on developing dedicated programming for artists across disciplines to meet and build long
term relationships and unique partnerships that strengthen and nurture the arts ecosystem collectively. One of the main highlights of the 2024 edition would be the launch of an AI Lab that will act as an incubation centre for artists using technology and regenerative art as a tool to develop a new art language. Moreover, the Festival will also add a few new venues that promise to enhance the experience of engaging and viewing art. SAF is arguably the world’s first interdisciplinary festival that spans across the performing, visual and culinary arts, and craft. This year, the panel of distinguished curators presents some familiar names along with new additions, who become part of its all encompassing and growing repository of creative minds.
Except for Culinary Arts, two curators have been selected for each discipline and all of them will work with the focus to have a “larger impact” on communities and societies through their projects. It will be the ninth edition of the festival, of which two were digitally hosted in the years 2020 and 2021, respectively. The curators for the Visual Arts section this year are Veeranganakumari Solankiand artist duo Thukral & Tagra. While this is Solanki’s third time stint as the curator of this section, the New Delhi based artist duo who are known for exploring socioeconomic landscape through the lens of experiential activities and public engagement will be making their debut as Festival’s curators. Revered globally for his dexterity on the table and being one of the pioneers of experimental fusion music, Bickram Ghosh is back as the curator of the Music section along with Zubin Balaporia, who curated 3 special projects- Celebration, Indus Creedand an Evening of Serendipity with Zakir Hussainin the 2023 edition.
Helming the Theatre section are Quasar Thakore Padamsee and Sankar Venkateswaran. Padamsee has curated two previous theatre editions whereas Venkateswaran was part of Theatre at Home section of the Festival’s 2018 edition. Culinary Arts has been an integral part of the Festival and is often seen as a playground for interactive workshops and engagement. This year, Elizabeth Yorke and Anusha Murthyof Edible Issues will be bringing their knowledge in sustainable food systems to her curatorial framework. They have previously been associated withthe Festival in its 2022 and 2023 editions. Sandeep Sangaru and Kristine Michael will be curating the Craft section of the Festival. Sangaru will be continuing his exploration on sustainability, this time with a focus on Ladakh, whereas Michael, will be looking at ceramics and glass as an area focus. Padma Shri recipient Geeta Chandran along with Jayachandran Palazhy of Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts will be curating the Dance
section. Lastly,writer,poet and disability campaigner Salil Chaturvedi will be exploring and identifying the ways to improve. Accessibility at the Festival.
“We welcome the 2024 curators on board to co create and explore the possibilities of investigating how varied forms of art can come together. The Festival offers them absolute support to push their creative boundaries and showcase projects they might have always wanted to develop but never found support. At Serendipity, we believe art holds immense power to have an impact on how people behave and think. And through inventive programming and curation we can initiate conversations that may have a larger impact on people,” said Mr. Sunil Kant Munjal, the Founder Patron of the Serendipity Arts Foundation.
