Internet as Site: Smriti Rajgarhia on Creative Placemaking

Recorded on 18 August 2021.

"When we said site, in our heads, we always meant a physical site... The pandemic made us realise we were ignoring the biggest site that was in front of us," says Smriti Rajgarhia, Director, Serendipity Arts Foundation, explaining why the 2020 edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival asked its curators to look at the internet as the space in which audiences would interact with the works.

This impulse also shapes the 2021 edition of the festival, but with a greater focus on hybrid models of art—works that could take a physical or digital form as necessary. One such initiative is the Food Lab. When asked how such sensorial experiences could be translated into the virtual, Rajgarhia suggests that that is where the imagination comes in. A recipe can spark a memory—filled with the sights, sounds and smells of a place and time—as much as a plate of food can.

While the festival does not want to lose the conversation between the physical and the digital, the pandemic seems to have pushed it in the direction the world is going—more digital forms, fewer community experiences and more cross-cultural collaboration. In this virtual world, art has to invite engagement that moves beyond passive viewing. Individual experiences can only be enhanced through participation, otherwise the work becomes just another open tab or another link on a social media feed.

The festival hosts archives of its past editions on its website, allowing for introspection and institution building. Considering the multidisciplinary nature of the Serendipity Arts Festival, Rajgarhia says, “Archives are the only way to pass on non-written histories.”

^{(Featured Image: Freedom from Fear by Mayco Naing as a part of Look, Stranger! curated by Rahaab Allana for Serendipity Arts Festival. Goa. 2019.)}

The ASAP Cast series is supported by the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts.