Serendipity Arts at India Art Fair 2019

Serendipity Arts Foundation showcases young talent and 

offers platforms for cultural dialogue at India Art Fair 2019

25 January 2019:  Following the highly acclaimed and successful 3rd edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival held in December 2018, the Serendipity Arts Foundation, participates at the India Art Fair 2019 ( 31st January 2019 to 3rd February, 2019) for its first institutional collaboration of the year. The IAF display aims to extend the Festival’s core goals of promoting multidisciplinary practice and discourse across the arts.

Serendipity Arts Foundation is a non-profit organisation with a vision of energising arts production, awareness and practice across South Asia. A  collaborative platform for the arts, the organisation aims to create new sustainable environments for the arts that engender change across the country’s cultural spectrum. 

The Foundation’s primary initiative, the Serendipity Arts Festival was held in Goa at the end of last year and celebrated over ninety projects across seven disciplines, with over fifteen-hundred participating artists. 

Showcasing key projects from the 2018 Festival at Booth H02 from January 31st to February 3rd, the presentation will further develop two key tenets of the Foundation’s mandate and research interests: highlighting its annual residency programme and initiatives focused on platforming South Asia’s young emerging artists, whilst also exploring the use of performance and the body in contemporary art practice.

Mr. Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman Serendipity Arts Foundation said - “One of our key objectives at the Serendipity Arts Foundation is to unite the country through the arts. Whilst we are consistently committed to engaging the public and being inclusive, we’re also focused on energising contemporary practice not just in Goa, but across the country.  The objective is to challenge traditional boundaries and redefine engagement with the arts. The eight days of the Serendipity Arts Festival is only a window but the work of the Serendipity Arts Foundation is yearlong. The initiatives of the festival every year feed into the research programs for the Serendipity Arts Foundation to implement for the next year.” 

Extending key themes explored at this year’s festival, one section of the presentation will examine the concept of performance within the context of the 2018’s multidisciplinary programming, whilst the second area considers the role of the art residency as a space for creative growth and transformation via two key Festival projects — The Dharti Arts Residency and Line of Flight. 

Curated by the Serendipity Arts Foundation, 2018 the Dharti Arts Residency now entering its 3rd cycle is an annual three-month residency project aimed at fostering contemporary art production and dissemination. The 2018 iteration of the project culminated in an interdisciplinary exhibition at the Festival showcasing the works of four selected artists and a critic. The residency programme encourages interdisciplinary creative dialogue and exchange and is created for young and emerging practitioners. 

Elaborating further Ms Smriti Rajgarhia, Director, Serendipity Arts Foundation explained, ”The residency programme places equal emphasis on process and outcome, expanding the concept of the artist residency and looking at its impact not just on young practitioners, but also on the art community and policy makers.”

Extrapolating the model created with the Dharti Residency, Line of Flight was a 3-part project initiated at Serendipity Arts Festival 2018 which aimed to address artist mobility as an essential component of artistic practice and growth. Furthering the Serendipity Art Foundation’s core ethos of fostering cultural growth and energising contemporary arts practice in India, the project garnered strong international participation and representation.

Line of Flight included a day-long symposium, a supporting exhibition, and a publication which reflected on artist residencies as one of the nodal points in the international ecosystem of contemporary art. Informed by the understanding that artistic globalisation is not uniform, the discussion expanded on how residencies negotiate the unequal mechanisms of globalisation.  Institutional partners and international representation included: Delfina Foundation (UK), Para Site (Hong Kong), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Germany), Sommerakademie Paul-Klee (Switzerland), Raw Material Company (Senegal), Khoj (India) and 1Shanthiroad (India).  

Body / Movement / Space: Investigations at Serendipity Arts Festival will look at the idea of ‘performance’, featuring video content from the panel discussion Line of Flight and excerpts from performance-based projects from SAF 2018, as well as, printed collaterals. The presentation will explore the inherent relationships between theatre, dance and performative practice in the visual arts charting the Festival’s development over three editions to provide a larger context within which to place the discussion. 

Furthering the Foundation’s core mandate of encouraging dialogue and discourse around the arts, the IAF Booth will also include #SerendipityConversations – an informal discussion space where IAF visitors are invited to engage with the Foundation spokespeople to  garner deeper insights into the Foundation’s ethos and current initiatives as well as its future and long term goals.

About Serendipity Arts Festival

The Foundation's primary initiative and largest project, Serendipity Arts Festival is a multi-disciplinary arts event held annually every December in Goa. Curated by a panel of eminent artists and institutional figures, the Festival is a long-term cultural project that hopes to instigate positive change across the arts in India on a large scale. Spanning the visual, performing and culinary arts, the Festival’s programming includes music, dance, visual arts, craft, photography, film and theatre. The Festival addresses pressing social issues such as arts education and pedagogy, cultural patronage, interdisciplinary discourse, and accessibility to the arts. Serendipity Arts Festival’s intensive programme of exhibitions and performances is energised by spaces for social and educational engagement. The third edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival took place in Goa from 15-22 December 2018.

2nd Art Spectrum Award By Serendipity