Jaipur, September 25, 2025

This December, Goa will host the 10th edition of the Serendipity Arts Festival from 12th - 21st December 2025 - a milestone moment for what has become India’s most ambitious celebration of the arts. Over the past decade, Serendipity has transformed the cultural calendar of the country, creating a unique space where visual arts, theatre, dance, music, craft, design, photography, and culinary traditions converge. What began as an experiment in 2016 is now a movement — one that has brought together thousands of artists, curators, and audiences to reimagine the possibilities of culture.

And this year, amidst the landmark celebrations, Rajasthan takes centre stage through the Charpai Project (first featured in the 2018 edition of Serendipity Arts Festival), co-curated by Jaipur’s acclaimed designer Ayush Kasliwal with Ramayudh Sahu. If there is one object that embodies the essence of Indian life, it is the charpai. Woven with rope, humble yet ingenious, it is a bed, a seat, a resting space, and a gathering point. In villages and cities alike, the charpai has carried the intimacy of domestic life and the vibrancy of collective exchange.

At Serendipity, this unassuming piece of furniture becomes a stage for dialogue and reinvention. The project invites leading designers and thinkers to reinterpret the charpai for the future, asking what this timeless object can mean in contemporary life.

“The charpai is more than just a piece of furniture -  it is an idea of India itself. It has always adapted to the needs of its time, and through this project we hope to spark conversations about tradition, sustainability, and community that feel as relevant today as they did centuries ago. At Serendipity Arts Festival, it becomes a living installation, inviting us to reflect on tradition, design, and community in a changing world.” says Ayush Kasliwal.

For audiences from Jaipur, the project carries a special resonance as a reminder that even the most familiar forms of our daily lives can hold profound stories when placed in the spotlight of art.

On World Tourism Day, 27th September, Serendipity Arts reminds us that journeys are also about the movement of culture and craft. Tourism is not only about destinations, it is about the exchange of ideas, traditions, and ways of life that travel with us. The Charpai embodies this spirit. From the courtyards of Rajasthan to homes across India, it has always been more than furniture –  it is a symbol of gathering, rest, and belonging. At the Serendipity Arts Festival, this familiar object makes another journey, travelling into the heart of Goa to be reimagined as an artwork for the future. In this way, the Charpai reminds us that even the simplest traditions carry with them the power to move across time and place, bringing people together and sparking fresh conversations wherever they go.

The Charpai Project is just one among more than 150 projects and performances that will unfold across Panjim. From powerful theatre adaptations curated under Anuradha Kapur and Lillete Dubey, to experimental food journeys by Chef Manu Chandra, Chef Thomas Zacharias & The Locavore; from Zubin Balaporia & Ehsaan Noorani’s jazz-fusion concerts and classical music performances put together by Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan as well as Bickram Ghosh;  to exhibitions on photography, craft, and contemporary art by curators including Rahaab Allana, Dinesh Khanna, Rashmi Varma, Sandeep Sangaru, Veerangana Solanki, Ranjit Hoskote, Sudarshan Shetty, and many more; the festival will transform the city into a vibrant hub of creativity. With its riverfront promenades, heritage buildings, and public parks reimagined as cultural venues, Serendipity Arts Festival offers a rare chance to experience India’s artistic diversity in one place, across ten days.

As the festival marks a decade of shaping South Asia’s cultural narrative, this year promises to be its biggest and most compelling edition yet. For those in Rajasthan, it is a moment of pride to see the charpai – a symbol of home, community, and resilience – once again occupy a prominent space at a festival that has come to define the spirit of contemporary India. To be in Goa this December is an invitation to step into a living, breathing celebration of art in all its forms as a gathering that will be spoken of long after the lights dim on its tenth edition.

Come be a part of the country’s biggest celebration of the arts at Serendipity Arts Festival from 12th to 21st December in Goa.

About Serendipity Arts Festival

Serendipity Arts Festival transforms 300,000 square feet of iconic buildings and alternative spaces into South Asia's premier multi-disciplinary cultural platform. Spanning visual, performing, and culinary arts alongside film, live arts, and literature, the Festival challenges status quo relationships—between art and viewer, city and citizen, proscenium and audience. Working within these dialectics, we foster conversations that strengthen cultural ecosystems and create human channels spreading impact across regions and generations. Having proven that cultural placemaking can transform cities, the Festival operates as a nomadic structure designed to adapt to any city and any stage. This cultural experiment supports artistic practice while demonstrating how culture cultivates empathetic leadership, teaches kindness, and builds the foundation for a safe, healthy, and progressive society.

Serendipity Arts

Serendipity Arts is a not-for-profit collaborative platform based in Delhi, fostering empathy, curiosity and cross-cultural dialogue

by supporting emerging artists across South Asia. The Foundation’s aim is to nurture artistic practice, promote research, and provide sustainability and education in the field of the arts. Over the past decade, Serendipity Arts has encouraged cultural heritage projects alongside contemporary art practices with extensive residencies, grants, collaborative projects, art writing initiatives and a multi-disciplinary arts festival.

The tenth edition of Serendipity Arts Festival is set to take place in Panjim, Goa, from 12th-21st December, 2025.