Panjim, Goa | Serendipity Arts Festival 2022 reinforces how destination art shows are drawing crowds

Serendipity Arts Festival, with its 500-plus artistes and 14 venues, underpinned how destination shows in India are changing the way communities interact with art

After a long lull, on-ground festivals and art fairs are back. Last month, Bengaluru hosted the 11th edition of Bangalore Literature Festival to much fanfare. Further south, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale made a comeback after two years.

And in Goa, at the Mandovi waterfront, a lively December mood returned as the Serendipity Arts Festival (December 15-23) reinstated its true form, after two years of exploring the virtual format. “For a lot of people, it was the year of revenge travel. [This edition highlighted] that art is all about shared experiences and how people feel when they are together,” says Smriti Rajgarhia, director of Serendipity Arts Foundation and Festival.

Since 2016, when Serendipity Arts Festivals (SAF) made its debut, it has evolved into a public art festival that is much beyond a Panjim festival. This year, it offered a series of mini events that brought together Indian and international talents from formats as diverse as art and photography, theatre and dance, besides talks and workshops, open air DJ sets as well as Hindustani classical performances on a boat. “Most festivals are quite specific to a discipline, but for SAF, we look at gaps between the genres and disciplines, so we can’t be typecast,” says Rajgarhia, who organised their largest lineup of events so far, in just four months of planning.

While the Kochi Biennale had teething issues (its opening was postponed by 11 days), SAF was like a well-oiled machine, where relevant programming, smooth execution, and a variety of curated shows brought together a festival that worked like a successful social experiment to regenerate public spaces. Visitors could experience art in unconventional spaces — old government buildings converted into makeshift galleries (the Post Office Museum’s display of miniature paintings was a triumphant retrospective of Indo-British art from colonial India), abandoned buildings transformed into a creative playground for immersive theatre (the Money Opera performance witnessed a full house every day) and music shows in the parks and even parking lots.

“When the festival began, I was struck by the goal it set for itself: of creating a new form of interaction between heritage and art, and citizens and the city. And I’ve seen over the course of seven years and five editions that they have unstintingly gone after that mission,” says Goa-based journalist Vivek Menezes, who has been associated with a host of festivals in his home State, from the reputed International Film Festival of India to the recently-launched Liberty and Light Festival.

With sidewalks as stages and promenades as free-for-all performance venues, festivals like SAF offer public spaces a fluidity that encourages the local community to use its multipurpose potential. In eschewing the traditional, commercial art route, not only does it show them how art can impact society but also how communities can shape their social spaces.

For Menezes, a modern-day chronicler of Panjim, the festival brought newer ways of interacting with a city he knows so closely. “Their sprucing up of buildings and finding unique venues every year is an aspect that I find interesting. This year itself, I found at least three spaces on the Mandovi waterfront that I haven’t experienced after a lifetime of being in Panjim.”