During the three-month-long residency, six artists-in-residence received mentorship and worked
on a series of projects that explore and interpret the world around us
Serendipity Arts Residency 2024: Open Studio
● Opening Night: Tuesday, August 13, 2024; 6PM – 10PM
● Exhibition Dates: August 14 – August 23, 2024 (Closed on August 15 and 18)
● Timings: 11 AM – 6 PM
● Venue: Serendipity Arts Foundation, C-340, Chetna Marg, Defence Colony, New Delhi
New Delhi, August XX, 2024 – Serendipity Arts Foundation is thrilled to announce the
Serendipity Arts Residency 2024 Open Studio featuring the innovative and thought-provoking
practices of five artists and one writer. This annual program offers creative minds the space and
resources to develop their practice, work on new projects, and interact with the broader art
community in the capital.
The Residency showcase will run from August 14 to August 23, 2024, open daily from 11 AM to
6 PM (except on August 15 and 18) with artists’ walkthroughs, performances, and workshops
scheduled throughout the week. The final projects will also be showcased at the Serendipity
Arts Festival 2024 in Panjim, Goa, this December.
Now in its seventh edition, the Serendipity Arts Residency is a three-month program based in
New Delhi, dedicated to supporting emerging artists across various disciplines, including visual
arts, lens-based and new media practices, text, sound, performance, and other innovative
media. Throughout the residency, the artists participated in peer-to-peer conversations, critique
sessions, artist talks, performances, masterclasses, workshops, and gallery and studio visits,
culminating in the production of new works that will be showcased.
This year’s residency, which started on May 15, features six residents: five artists and one writer
selected by a jury. The jury comprised researcher and filmmaker Gautam Pemmaraju,
contemporary dancer Padmini Chettur, writer and curator Premjish Achari, and visual artist
Prajakta Potnis.
Detailed notes on Serendipity Arts Residency 2024 projects:
it mostly feels familiar
Adheep Das
Adheep Das explores the concept of borrowing and transforming elements over time. His work
features 3D spaces that he describes as “defaced versions of reality” and traditional charcoal
animations are photographed and superimposed onto these spaces. This process combines
slow, intensive manual techniques, mingling with the faster speed of digital technologies.
Life-less-Life
Purnendra Kumar Meshram
Purnendra Meshram’s “Life-less-Life” blends dance-movement and video projection to explore
themes of in-betweenness and identity. Through his performance, Meshram examines an
evolving sense of home across the experiences of living in his village Patan, and various major
cities in India. His movements symbolise the physical and emotional shifts in his journey,
reflecting on a fragmented sense of belonging.
that which is left behind after exorcisms
Sanghamitra Deb
Sanghamitra presents a multimedia studio installation titled “that which is left behind after
exorcisms”, and a ritual performance called rupantaran using text, audio, video, painting, mud,
and drag. Her paintings are made from period blood, hair, acrylic and fabric paint, ink, coffee,
and sequins on handmade paper. A rebirth ritual where she sheds her former gendered
existence, this work blends performance, lens-based media, storytelling, and painting. It is a
grieving of the past self while birthing the essential gender-free being, highlighting the trauma
and dysphoria experienced in a heteronormative neurotypical world.
A Being Between Worm Clod and Clods
Sheshadev Sagria
Sheshadev Sagria’s project delves into knowledge systems and claims, questioning conventional
methods of validation. Inspired by his visits to Delhi’s Tribal Museum and the Saagwala zamin in
Ghaziabad, his work examines the act of turning soil into clods and the sensorial and
epistemological worlds unearthed by the figure of the earthworm. This project reflects on the
fragmentation and marginalisation of knowledge, emphasising actions that evolve and cannot
be easily measured or recreated. It questions scientific methods and the static positioning of
dynamic beings.
Wandering/ Wondering
Urna Sinha
Urna Sinha’s work incorporates gouache on archival paper, inkjet prints, an artist book, gouache
on silk, overhead projections, and video installations. Her exploration focusses on the concept
of territory in a constantly shifting world, examining the body’s movement through ephemeral
terrains. By drawing and redrawing sites, she creates a speculative territory that navigates
between memory, loss, and the paradoxes of refuge and survival. Her work is a meditation on
the layers of absence and humanness embedded in images.
Writer-in-Residence
Saloni Jaiwal
Saloni Jaiwal investigates the notions of space, presence, and mobility in the context of a
hyper-digital, networked world. Her writing contemplates the dynamics of cohabitation, the
anxiety of vanishing bodily presence, and the socio-political and cultural demands that shape
our understanding of space. She reflects on the concept of nearness and distance, proposing a
critique of contemporary image cultures and their impact on our perception of reality.
Schedule for the Residency Showcase:
14 August, Wednesday
rupantaran enscribed I
A performance by sanghamitra
12 pm – 2 pm
Exhibition Walkthrough with Saloni Jaiwal
3 pm – 4 pm
Life-less-life
A performance by Purnendra Meshram
4:30 pm – 5 pm
16 August, Friday
living artmaking performance I
A performance by sanghamitra
12 pm – 2 pm
A parallel play space for neurodivergent artists to create in silence. The space can be your
inspiration. Bring your own art materials and headphones. Limited plug connections available for
digital artists.
Life-less-life
A performance by Purnendra Meshram
4 pm – 4:30 pm
17 August, Saturday
Book-Making Workshop
With Urna Sinha
2 pm – 4 pm
Capacity: 10 (registration required)
We encourage you to bring fragments of texts/ images/ 2D objects that can be scanned, edited,
and turned into narratives.
Floorwork Workshop
With Purnendra Meshram
4 pm – 6 pm
Capacity: 10 (registration required)
19 August, Monday
rupantaran enscribed II
A performance by sanghamitra
12 pm – 2 pm
Improvisation and Movement Workshop
With Purnendra Meshram
4 pm – 4:30 pm
Capacity: 10 (registration required)
20 August, Tuesday
A Conversation with Sheshadev Sagria
2:30 pm – 3:30 pm
Life-less-life
A performance by Purnendra Meshram
4 pm – 4:30 pm
living artmaking performance II
By sanghamitra
5 pm – 6 pm
Love songs for the mirror. Musical performances and words for love.
21 August, Wednesday
rupantaran enscribed III
A performance by sanghamitra
12 pm – 2 pm
Lost and Found
An interactive session with Urna Sinha on photographs and fragments
4 pm – 6 pm
Capacity: 10 (registration required)
Each participant may bring in their own collected images and text that we will explore through
projection.
22 August, Thursday
Exhibition Walkthrough with Saloni Jaiwal
3 pm – 4 pm
Chalo Chori Karte Hain
A Photogrammetry Workshop with Adheep Das
4 pm – 5 pm
Capacity: 20 (registration required)
Getting ready for (rebirth)day celebrations
A performance by sanghamitra
5:30 pm – 6:30 pm
NOTES TO EDITOR:
About Serendipity Arts
Serendipity Arts is an arts and cultural development foundation created to encourage and
support the arts as a significant contributor to civil society. It aims to promote new creative
strategies, artistic interventions, and cultural partnerships that are responsive and seek to
address the social, cultural, and environmental milieu of South Asia. Committed to innovation,
SA intends to promote and create platforms for creativity, providing the wider public with a
unique source of contemporary art and culture. SAF’s programmes are designed and initiated
through collaborations with partners across a multitude of fields and each intervention uses the
arts to impact education, create social initiatives, foster community development and explore
multidisciplinary forays in the arts, with a special focus on South Asia.
About Serendipity Arts Festival
The Foundation’s primary initiative and largest project, Serendipity Arts Festival is a
multi-disciplinary arts initiative held annually every December in Goa. Curated by a panel of
eminent artists and curators, 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 access to the arts. Serendipity
Arts Festival’s intensive programme of exhibitions and performances is energised by spaces for
social and educational engagement. The Festival is coming back for its ninth edition this year to
Panjim, Goa from December 15-22.
