ART STORIES is an evocative exhibition of paintings that brings together creativity, healing and inclusion through art. The exhibition showcases artworks by persons with disabilities and participants of the course Art as a Healing Tool, offering unique visual expressions inspired by everyday thoughts, emotions and experiences. Rooted in the belief that “every person is an artist” and echoing Joseph Beuys’ idea that art can reshape society for the better, ART STORIES presents art as both personal expression and social engagement.
The exhibition is a collaborative effort between artists with intellectual disabilities from Divya Sadan, a project of Caritas Goa in Porvorim, and St Francis Xavier Vocational Centre, an education and vocation centre for children with disabilities in Old Goa, along with participants of the Art as a Healing Tool course organised by Caritas Goa in Panjim. All the artists were guided by artist and art facilitator Ms Lioba Knepple, whose approach focuses on creativity as a therapeutic and empowering process.
Curated by Samira Sheth, ART STORIES opens at 12 noon on Sunday, December 14, and will remain on view until December 21, 2025, outside the rehearsal room at Kala Academy. The exhibition is organised under the banner of the Serendipity Arts Festival 2025 and is open to the public with free entry, although prior registration is required.
Beyond the exhibition itself, ART STORIES carries a deeper purpose. Proceeds from the sale of paintings and other products will go towards supporting initiatives for persons with disabilities. Through this exhibition, Caritas Goa continues its commitment to working with the needy, the marginalised and the oppressed, using art as a powerful medium for healing, dignity and social change.
The BRIJ Incubator was officially unveiled at the 10th edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival 2025, marking its first public appearance as a platform dedicated to nurturing early-stage cultural, craft-based, and creative ventures in India. The launch took place at The Stage, Art Park in Panjim, in the presence of Mr. Sunil Kant Munjal and Shri Vivek Aggarwal, Secretary, Ministry of Culture, Government of India, setting the tone for a week of conversations and programming around making, entrepreneurship, and cultural innovation at the festival.
Conceived as an initiative that bridges traditional knowledge systems with contemporary entrepreneurial thinking, The BRIJ Incubator is designed to support founders, artisans, and cultural practitioners who are building sustainable, future-oriented enterprises rooted in heritage, material innovation, and community-led practices. Its debut at Serendipity offered audiences and industry stakeholders an early introduction to the Incubator’s mission and its first cohort of incubatees—Ekatra, Golden Feathers, and Karghewale.
Speaking at the launch, Mr. Sunil Kant Munjal, Founder Patron of Serendipity Arts and The BRIJ, shared that the Incubator emerged from the realisation that while India has an extraordinary depth of cultural knowledge and craft practice, there are limited structured pathways for these ideas to grow into sustainable enterprises. He noted that the Incubator aims to thoughtfully bridge tradition and entrepreneurship, building long-term value for artisans, founders, and India’s cultural economy. Launching the initiative at the Serendipity Arts Festival, he said, felt appropriate as festivals are spaces where ideas are tested, conversations emerge, and new ecosystems begin.
Addressing the gathering, Shri Vivek Aggarwal highlighted the evolving role of Serendipity Arts Festival in strengthening India’s cultural infrastructure. He acknowledged how platforms such as Serendipity are increasingly engaging with initiatives like The BRIJ Incubator to connect the arts with India’s startup and innovation ecosystem, thereby creating structured pathways for cultural entrepreneurship and long-term growth in the sector.
Mr. Mohit Dhawan, spokesperson for The BRIJ Incubator and President, Investment Office, Hero Enterprise, shared that the Incubator has grown out of years of listening to founders, artisans, and innovators who are doing meaningful work but often lack the structured support needed to mature their ideas into enterprises. He added that the goal is to create responsible pathways for cultural ventures to evolve while remaining true to the communities and practices they represent, and that Serendipity’s milestone year provided the right environment to begin this journey.
The launch also introduced The BRIJ Incubator’s broader programme at Serendipity Arts Festival 2025, which includes a flagship panel on Business Model Innovation and Funding Landscape in Arts & Crafts, featuring representatives from the Government of Goa, Catalyst AIC, Caspian Equity, HCL Foundation, and IFMR. The programme further includes Spark Idea: Pitch Opportunity, India’s first pitch platform dedicated to craft and culture-led startups, along with hands-on Maker’s Asylum workshops running throughout the festival.
Additional engagements include Craft Hub sessions led by incubatees Ekatra and Karghewale, offering immersive experiences in sustainable gifting, textile upcycling, and handloom weaving, as well as silent panels and making-led conversations exploring themes such as Jugaad versus Maker Culture and the evolving relationship between humans, materials, and craft.
The BRIJ Incubator’s presence at Serendipity Arts Festival 2025 marks the beginning of a long-term vision to build a dedicated ecosystem for cultural entrepreneurship in India. Future initiatives will be anchored at The BRIJ, a new cultural district currently under development in Delhi, envisioned as a space for interdisciplinary learning, making, research, and incubation—strengthening the foundations of India’s creative economy for years to come.
Migration and displacement, often discussed through numbers and geopolitical debates, take on deeply human dimensions at the Serendipity Arts Festival 2025 through the exhibition Displacement, curated by art historian Rahaab Allana. Open to viewing at The Old PWD Complex in Panaji, the exhibition brings together artists from South Asia and the Gulf region whose works reflect lived experiences of exile, asylum and rupture.
Allana situates the exhibition within the context of recent global migration trends, noting that 2024 witnessed record levels of displacement worldwide. From conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan to internal displacement within South Asia, the curator connects global crises with local and regional realities. These transitions, shaped by racism, border anxieties and minority-majority debates, form the conceptual backbone of Displacement.
The exhibition foregrounds image-based practices that confront today’s volatile socio-political landscape. While wars, territorial conflicts and ideologies dominate headlines, Allana stresses that it is ultimately human lives that bear the consequences. The works on display insist on a humanist approach, using art as a provocation for dialogue and empathy at a time of increasing polarisation.
Many of the artists featured are themselves living in exile or seeking asylum far from their homelands. Their works speak of both internal and external displacement, addressing themes of severance, surveillance, memory and loss, while also revealing how art becomes a means of survival and community-building. Through creative expression, these artists forge connections and shared spaces even while navigating life in exile.
Among the notable works is that of Afghan artist Hadi Ranaward, whose piece maps Kabul with delicate origami planes and helicopters hovering above the city. The shadows they cast evoke constant scrutiny and surveillance, capturing the psychological reality of living under watch and within contested spaces. Such works invite viewers to reflect not only on territory and power, but on the everyday lives shaped by them.
Trained in art history and photography, Allana’s curatorial practice has long focused on decolonising visual narratives, a sensibility that is evident throughout the exhibition. Rather than closing conversations, Displacement opens them up, encouraging viewers to ask questions and engage with perspectives that are often marginalised.
At its core, Displacement resists simplification. It does not seek easy resolutions but instead insists on complexity, compassion and attentiveness. Within the broader framework of the Serendipity Arts Festival, the exhibition stands as a reminder that behind every migration story is a human life — carrying memory, trauma, hope and the enduring need to belong.
The second day of Serendipity Arts Festival 2025 unfolded as a vibrant celebration of sound, memory and visual storytelling, reaffirming the festival’s commitment to diverse artistic expressions spread across multiple venues in Panjim. Audiences moved seamlessly between music, film, exhibitions and culinary experiences, encountering art that invited both participation and reflection.
At The Arena at Nagalli Hills, the evening’s musical journey began with The Revisit Project, curated by Zubin Balaporia and Ehsaan Noorani. Known for demystifying the complexities of jazz, the band delivered a powerful blend of groove-driven rhythms, old-school funk and contemporary jazz, weaving pointed observations about life, love and politics in India into their performance. The set offered a refreshing balance of technical precision and emotional accessibility, drawing in both seasoned listeners and new audiences.
The night reached a celebratory high with Motown Madness, also curated by Zubin Balaporia. The high-energy concert paid tribute to the iconic Motown sound that shaped generations, transporting audiences through timeless hits associated with legends like Michael Jackson, The Supremes and Stevie Wonder. The performance blended nostalgia with exuberance, turning the venue into a space of collective joy and shared musical memory.
Reflecting on the evening, Balaporia noted that the curation was about embracing the vast emotional range of music — from the sharp, contemporary language of jazz to the enduring warmth of Motown. Despite their differences, he observed, both performances met on common ground through rhythm, storytelling and shared energy.
Meanwhile, the Captain of Ports Jetty in Old Goa continued to host unique experiences aboard the Barge installation. The Silent Film Screening by Aldona Video Club transformed the floating venue into an intimate cinema, where audiences engaged with cinema that both honoured and questioned traditional narrative forms. The collective’s approach examined representation and media boundaries, offering a contemplative counterpoint to the city’s musical pulse.
From December 14 onwards, exhibitions across festival venues opened to the public, further expanding the festival’s immersive landscape. At the Directorate of Accounts, Multiplay 02: Soft Systems, curated by Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, invited visitors into a participatory environment designed as a sandbox for collective experience. Featuring works by artists including Chunky Move, Jayasimha Chandrashekar, Alke Reeh, Bwanga Kapumpa and Teja Gavankar, the exhibition encouraged acts of care, rest and attention — from modelling clay portraits in the dark to listening to the sounds of trees and birds. The curators described the project as a tender constellation of practices that hold space, invite participation and foster connection through touch, rhythm and generosity.
At Art Park, The Culinary Odyssey of Goa, curated by Odette Mascarenhas, explored Goan cuisine as a living archive of memory and migration. The project showcased five traditional kitchens representing Hindu artisans, Muslim descendants of the Bijapur dynasty, Gaud Saraswat Brahmins, Indo-Luso influences and Christian descendants. Through tastings centred on ingredients such as turmeric, kokum, black peppercorn, tamarind and star anise, visitors engaged with stories of spice, history and everyday ritual narrated by the curator herself.
The Promenade hosted Urban Reimagined, curated by Ravi Agarwal, which examined the city through the lens of waste, extraction and inequality. Featuring photographs by the late Vivan Sundaram, the exhibition positioned waste as a marker of caste and class, prompting audiences to confront what urban spaces reveal — and conceal — about aspiration, excess and social structure.
At The Access Village in the Old GMC Complex, Therefore I Am brought together seven artists whose lived experiences of disability shape their creative practices. Working across painting, sculpture, photography, video, performance and digital media, the artists challenged conventional perceptions of the body, presenting disability as a powerful site of creativity, resistance and truth. Curator Salil Chaturvedi highlighted the exhibition as an essential reminder that disability is not marginal, but an integral part of the collective human story.
Together, the experiences of Day 2 wove a rich tapestry of jazz, nostalgia, visual inquiry and participatory art, underscoring Serendipity Arts Festival 2025’s role as a platform where artistic expression meets social reflection and shared experience.
The landmark 10th edition of Serendipity Arts Festival opened in Panjim on December 12 with a powerful celebration of India’s cultural heritage and contemporary artistic expression. Returning to Goa for ten days of immersive experiences, the opening day reflected the festival’s enduring vision of bridging tradition and innovation through art.
The evening commenced with the inauguration of Barge at the Captain of Ports Jetty in Old Goa, where Founder-Patron Mr. Sunil Kant Munjal welcomed audiences to the milestone edition. Reflecting on the journey of the festival, he described Serendipity Arts as a movement that has grown into a shared cultural space connecting artists, communities, and audiences across disciplines. The 10th edition, he noted, is dedicated to Mukta Munjal, whose early initiatives in the arts continue to inspire the festival’s spirit.
Curated by Veerangana Solanki, Barge transformed a floating structure into an experiential space exploring absence and presence through spatial, architectural, and sonic responses. Drawing from earlier exhibitions, the installation invited visitors to activate the space through movement, sound, and perception, leaving behind fleeting yet personal imprints.
The opening continued at Nagalli Hills with Palette(s), a striking performance by Cédric Gagneur and Marc Oosterhoff that reimagined wooden pallets as both object and collaborator. Blurring the lines between dance and circus, the performance explored gravity, vulnerability, and repetition in a raw and physical expression.
The night concluded with Clay Play, curated by Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan, a mesmerizing performance that foregrounded percussion instruments crafted from clay. Rooted deeply in Goan traditions, the sounds of the ghumat and other instruments resonated through the space, reaffirming their place as living cultural practices rather than relics of the past.
Across the city, Beasts of Reincarnations: Mythical Beings in the City began appearing along Panjim’s streets and waterfronts. Curated by Diptej Vernekar, the large-scale installations reimagined Goa’s effigy-making traditions, inviting the public to encounter ritual memory through forms suspended between destruction, renewal, and contemporary urban life.
As the festival unfolds, exhibitions opening from December 14 will further expand this dialogue. These include Not a shore, neither a ship, but the sea itself at the Old GMC Complex, OTHERLAND at the Old GMC Building, and several immersive installations exploring systems, food memory, loss, movement, and sensory experience across multiple venues.
Day 1 of Serendipity Arts Festival 2025 set a compelling tone for the days ahead, weaving together local and global voices, traditional and contemporary practices, and transforming Panjim into a living, breathing canvas of artistic discovery.
