Serendipity Arts Festival Returns for 11th Edition

Festival Venue 'Art Park' at the Serendipity Arts Festival 2025

'Worlds in a Box' workshop facilitated by Sahil Naik at the Serendipity Arts Festival 2025

'What Does Loss Taste Like_' curated by Chef Thomas Zacharias and The Locavore at the Serendipity Arts Festival 2025

Children's workshop at the festival venue 'Art Park' at the Serendipity Arts Festival 2025

Anisha Rachel, Goya, Culinary Arts Curator, Serendipity Arts Festival 2026

Nestled in a cosy corner of Moira, the Serendipity Arts Festival hosted its first Meet and Greet for the year 2026 at the exquisite Club Solene. Bringing together art enthusiasts, artists, writers and long-standing patrons of the festival, it was an evening of artistic excellence.

As the Serendipity Arts Festival steps into its second decade with this year being its 11th edition, it promises to exceed the high standards it has set for itself. Being one of South Asia’s biggest multidisciplinary arts festivals, this year the Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF) has so much to offer. With over 200 events and 16 curators, it includes installations and performances ranging from visual arts to theatre as well as dance, music and culinary arts, to name a few, while also opening its doors to children and persons with disabilities.

Independent art curator Samira Sheth has curated several art exhibitions, including one of art displayed by persons with disabilities from Divya Sadan, and it was a part of the last edition of the festival. The curator shared her experience with us, “Serendipity Arts Festival very kindly made us a part of the festival. It was a fantastic place to be because it brought a whole community of people to us and we felt like we were in the centre of all the action. It was nice to have such a platform.”

One of the highlights this year is a project being brought by the curator Ram Rahman, a renowned photographer who has exhibited his works at 3 SAF events before. This year, as a curator, he brings to the attendees a special project titled ‘Goa Through My Eyes’, a series of photos taken by Karan Kapoor from 1976 to 1996. Through this exhibition, Kapoor shares his perception of Goa after his parents, Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal, started renting a small shack on the beach in a village called Saunto Vaddo in Baga. The exhibition will be on display at the Old GMC Complex throughout the festival.

Deepali Nandwani, a writer, talks about how SAF makes exhibitions like these available to the public “What I find interesting about Serendipity Arts Festival is that it's probably India’s only public art festival. Having written about art for years, I’ve seen that people perceive art as a very elite pursuit and so are inhibited by art galleries. Serendipity Arts Festival has brought art from within the gallery space, which is elite, to the street where it is accessible.”

The visual arts discipline has quite a few interesting exhibitions, including Udan Khatola, curated by writer, poet, and disability rights campaigner, Salil Chaturvedi. The exhibition displays a pavilion made of waste mobile phone screens sourced from local repair shops, critiquing our contemporary digital consumption. Udan Khatola will also be on display at the Old GMC Complex throughout the festival. Besides visual arts, the culinary curator for this year is Anisha Oommen, the founder of Goya, she brings to the Food Lab a variety of workshops, sessions and exhibitions exploring memories through taste.

Mark Rocha, who has been visiting SAF for many years, looks forward to this year’s edition, “Being a spectator of the event, I enjoy it because I always get a chance to be surprised every time and there is nothing boring about SAF. Even being on a bus from one venue to another is an experience because suddenly someone will get up and start reciting poetry and you realise that you are now part of something.”

Shweta Verma, who has attended almost every edition of SAF, shares how she looks forward to it every year “Living in Panjim means that we can hop from one venue to the next. I look forward to good theatre performances and I have learnt a lot about food, culture and even local culture.”

The 11th edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival being held from 13th to 20th December, 2026 has a lot to offer for art enthusiasts as well as amateurs looking to learn. It promises to be 8 days of immersive experiences through different mediums, bringing together individuals from different walks of life.

The ticket booking for all the programmes of Serendipity Arts Festival, 2026 is live on the website. You can find a variety of programmes, while some are free, others are ticketed.