BySukant Deepak

October 24, 2019 (IANSlife) Serendipity Arts Foundation, India is associating with HarperCollins Publishers India to release a series of long-form essays about select projects from the 2018 edition of Serendipity Arts Festival, under the series title ‘Projects / Processes’. Founded in 2014, Serendipity Arts Foundation is an initiative to encourage creativity from the South Asia region to thrive and find a voice – in all its forms, transcending socio-cultural and economic barriers. The foundation has multiple initiatives throughout the year, including residencies, grants and its flagship multi-disciplinary arts initiative the Serendipity Arts Festival.
 
In 2017, the foundation started chronicling and publishing its various projects through commissioned research essays, long-form writing, and in-depth criticism exploring the ideas and processes behind select curatorial projects at Serendipity Arts Festival. The research work, done independently by the foundation, culminated in a series of essays called ‘Projects / Processes’. In order to support and promote art and writing in the arts, the foundation has joined hands with HarperCollins Publishers India, which will publish and distribute the series across the world.

The forthcoming series, exploring projects that took place during Serendipity Arts Festival 2018, comprises 5 volumes, offering an opportunity to give some of these works and the stories they tell a continued life, through a deeply engaging look at how they came together and their significance to the discourse of contemporary art in India. The five volumes are titled ‘The Personal is Political: Photo, Film & Performance Archives; Experiments in Performing Art; Continued Traditions & Histories of Performing Art; Explorations of the Contemporary’ and ‘Other Everydays’. The writers include — Akhila Vimal C., Amitava Sanyal, Bharathy Singaravel, Kamayani Sharma, Maya Palit, Meenakshi Thirukode, Mila Samdub, Rahaab Allana, Ranjana Dave, Rose Merin, Sabeena Gadihoke, Senjuti Mukherjee, Skye Arundhati Thomas, Trina Nileena Banerjee and Vivek Menezes.
 
Speaking about the collaboration, Bonita Vaz-Shimray, Publisher Harper Design, HarperCollins India said, “Serendipity Arts Foundation has done the incredible by making art accessible to all. The curatorial process and exhibition themes are meticulously executed and documented through the year and we are happy to collaborate with their team to bring these books to a larger audience. We are excited to publish this into our brand new HarperDesign imprint dedicated to art and design books.”
 

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Sukant Deepak can be contacted at sukant.d@ians.in

Editing by N. Lothungbeni Humtsoe