This year’s Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF) was important in showing people from outside the state – the ‘outsiders’ – what Panaji is at its best. Last month, the multidisciplinary festival at 14 venues across a 5-km area brought together 1,800 visual and performing artists and artisans from across India and some from abroad to exhibit, perform, workshop and talk about their work. Had gone.
The best way to get from one festival location to another was on foot, with a few moments to sit on the parapet to view the Mandovi – the water and the floating casino. Next best were shuttle cars (with poetry readers in some cars).
Marrying art and heritage
The centerpiece of the SAF was the old Government Medical College (GMC). Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar, associate professor at Goa College of Architecture, says the building was built in the 1920s. Designed by Goan architect Ramchandra Mangesh Adwalpalkar and built by local contractor Madeva Sinai Bobo e Calculo, it was “a product of its time”, taking inspiration from hospitals being built in British India. The neoclassical structure, built using locally available soft red laterite stone, was made of lime-stucco and painted predominantly yellow. “There was an unwritten rule in Portuguese-ruled Goa that only churches could be completely white,” says Khandolkar.
The functioning hospital was moved out, and in 2007, there were plans to convert it into a shopping mall, “…barring the intervention of an unexpected activist AfterAn art exhibition curated by Ranjit Hoskote”, reports Goa’s 124-year-old newspaper. Hey Heraldo!Then in 2015, there was talk of the Goa government planning to shift the Goa State Museum to the building, but it yielded no results.
“I remember coming to Goa in 2015 [to plan SAF]To walk past it, and say what a beautiful building it was,” says Smriti Rajgarhia, director of SAF and an architect by education. The following year, Old GMC became part of the inaugural edition of the festival.
In the old GMC
Today, it attracts the largest number of spectators for the SAF. The long verandah opens into a series of rooms, and during the recent edition, each showcased a different artist. was on the ground floor multiplayCurated by Gurugram-based artist duo Thukral and Tagra. Next door, at an immersion site indigo flower At the installation, visitors would wear indigo shoes to walk on the canvas, and smell its herbaceousness through the multitude of colors. They make their way to a future project – marks on the canvas creating unearthly designs. “Indigo is immortal,” says Adheep AK, textile designer for the 11:11 brand of clothing, who works with Himanshu Shani. “Even after 100 years, the pigment can be transferred to another fabric or garment.” This performance fits in well with GMC: both have a long life, and a colonial history.
indigo flower
A road full of history
Adjacent to the Old GMC is the Maquinez Palace, which housed a theater and a series of galleries for performances in December. Originally built in the early 1700s, it belonged to two brothers, it was rebuilt by the government in 1842 to establish the Escola Medico-Cirurgica de Goa, the second oldest medical school in Asia.
Unfortunately, the festival does not reveal a detailed history of the buildings. “For the tenth year [in 2025] We plan to involve researchers to do this,” says Rajgarhia.
Down this stretch of road along the Mandovi River, which extends no more than 800 metres, are several historic structures, including Adil Shah’s Palace, built in the 1500s with a blend of Indian and Islamic architecture – With arches and open spaces. It once housed the Legislative Assembly of Goa. The tree-lined promenade also features prominent Portuguese-era buildings, such as the Collectorate, the Customs House and the Academy of Arts, which was designed by architect Charles Correa and built in the 1970s.
Each site of the SAF can lead one in a different direction of exploration: the Art Park with children’s and public art projects, which can result in a walk to the river; While Samba Square next to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, which had an exhibition dedicated to the landscape and life of Ladakh, could lead to a wander around the market streets.
access issue
Writer-poet and disability rights campaigner Salil Chaturvedi, who is a wheelchair user, was appointed curator for disabled accessibility. “We started with a disability audit by the Bengaluru-based Center for Disability and Equal Opportunities,” he says. “Each disability has a different need, but the idea was to bring people together.” For example, there was an audio description workshop to help blind people experience the play. Since stair lifts could not be combined with landings in older buildings, wheelchairs with caterpillar wheels were provided in some places. He “arranged things like registration desks at wheelchair height”. And 15 pieces of tactile art by the Institute of Art and Design, Delhi, after visiting a blind school, created specifically for people suffering from blindness. Additionally, these and other tactile artifacts had labels in Braille.
Salil Chaturvedi
exploration of the new and the old
Every year, new locations are discovered. This year, the two important ones were the Directorate of Accounts, a 19th-century structure, and the beach. To the east, another yellow building, like the GMC, has long corridors connecting rooms and solid wood planks with modern wood planks on the sides, reflecting the passage of time.
Inside the Accounts Directorate
Most of the department has shifted to another location, but some employees were still surrounded by files on the ground floor. He had not yet gone upstairs, unaware of his old office. But Rajgarhia says that in the past, 75% of the footfalls were from Goan residents.
At Caranzalem beach, people from surrounding areas came to watch coastal states of existenceCurated by Chennai-based dancer Preeti Athreya. “We come here every day for a walk and we have seen them planting bamboo,” says Anjum Sheikh as her daughter plays in the sand. The pillars in the “Forest of Bamboo Pillars” by Chennai artist Shiva Murugan were painted with light projected in the form of waves, reflecting the movement of the ocean. “The aim of the festival is to energize the city. Every time you move from one place to another, experience a different side of life,” says Athreya.
On a boat, as the sun set over Mandovi, musicians performed river ragaSinger Vidya Shah, who took everyone on an hour-long journey of Begum Akhtar’s lyricism, says the venue was her dream come true. On one side are the centuries-old Mangalore-tiled Goan houses; On the other hand, floating casinos. The old and the new, and the syncretic cultures of Goa coming together on one boat.
published – January 03, 2025 11:11 am IST
