‘Goa Story’ Depicts the Essence of Goa Through
Children’s Memories
~ The ‘Goa Story’ workshop conducted by ThinkArts at the Serendipity Arts Festival 2023
encouraged children to artistically depict their interpretation of Goa.
~ The initiative aimed to thematically derive from exhibitions at the Serendipity Arts Festival
2023 and present a connection with the exhibits to children to inculcate a deeper
appreciation of art
Panaji, December 2023- For 10-year-old Daniyah Sheikh, the first thing that comes to mind
when one says Goa, is fish, rivers and banyan trees. For Audhut, 12, its pristine beaches.
Daniyah and Audhut participated in the ‘Goa Story’ workshop conducted by ThinkArts at the
ongoing Serendipity Arts Festival 2023, which aims to encourage children to artistically
depict their interpretation of Goa.
“When I think about Goa, I think about fish. I love to eat fish and I see lots of fish around
Goa. I also like the beaches, which I visit often. I drew a banyan tree with green and blue,
because Goa has many banyan trees everywhere and there are many rivers,” said Daniyah,
10, who was excited to attend the workshop because of her love for art.
Another participant at the workshop, Audhut, associates Goa with its pristine beaches. “I like
visiting the Colva beach because there are many activities, like jet skiing, paragliding and
motorboating, which I love to do because they are exciting. I drew the beach because it
reminds me of Goa,” he said.
The sunny state of Goa is known for its vivacious lifestyle and generally liberating
atmosphere. This perspective of Goa has been perpetuated by many to attract tourists for
economic purposes, to the point that some locals forget what Goa truly means to them,
according to Priya Singh, the facilitator of the children’s workshop titled ‘Goa Stories’ on Day
2 of the Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF) 2023.
But children, she says, have a very pure view of the state.
The theme of the workshop was derived from the SAF 2023 project ‘Goa Familia: Let the
Sound Linger’ – an exhibition curated by Lina Vincent and Akshay Mahajan that celebrates
the essence of the Goan spirit through music and song to interpret cultural and communal
experiences. “We utilise the events as a baseline from which we created these workshops
and activities. They all feed back into everything that is happening at the Festival,” said
Singh.
An initiative curated by ThinkArts under the Young at Art programme, the workshop focused
on enabling children to freely express their impressions of Goa via the artistic media of
paper, pencil and sketch pens. During the workshop, the children were asked to depict their
interpretation of the shape, colour and food associated with Goa.
“Our essential motto has always been that the work that we do for children should be easy
for them to understand but not dumbed down. It should still include profundity to enable them
to have transformative experiences,” says Singh, who is also the programme coordinator at
ThinkArts, an organisation that facilitates high-quality arts events for children and young
adults to spark their creative flair.
With a known historical background dating back to the third century BC when Goa was a
part of the Mauryan Empire, to its later conquests by the Kadambas, the Adil Shahis of
Bijapur and finally, the Portuguese, after which the state gained independence in 1961, Goa
has had many phases leading up to its contemporary identity that inform people’s
perceptions.
Globally renowned as the cultural hub of India boasting a vibrant heritage and the first point
of contact in Asia for the European colonial project during the Age of Discovery in the 15 th
and 16 th centuries, Goa’s essence, according to the experiences narrated by children at the
workshop, has a myriad of connotations.
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