Making Space for Goan Art (O Heraldo, 13/12/2025)

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https://www.heraldgoa.in/cafe/making-space-for-goan-art/457032/

The great Goan artist and pathbreaking Indian modernist Francis Newton
Souza liked to repeat the old line that “were it not for art, man
would die from boredom.” But what would he say about the deadly boring
art that is being peddled and pushed upon us in these tremulous times,
riddled through with “sanitization” and self-censorship?

There were some good insights in Apurva Kulkarni’s speech on behalf of
the jury of the Fundação Oriente Visual Arts Award 2025 earlier this
week, as they opened an exhibition of all short-listed artists and
announced three winners. He said “art often tackles universal or
uncomfortable truths about the human condition. When we react
strongly—with discomfort, awe, or resistance—the art is testing the
depth of our empathy or the firmness of our moral compass. Because art
is a mirror.”

That’s also a lovely way of describing the short-listed works which
will be on display for the next two months, as they are an exuberant
selection of veterans and freshers who are clearly compelled by
similar impulses and anxieties (starting with the environment).
Winning was high stakes, and Kulkarni said he believed the top prize
“is the most meaningful one in Goa. The reason is simple: the
recipient earns a residency in Portugal. For any artist, time spent in
a residency outside Goa or India is not only valuable but
transformative. Exposure to new contexts, new conversations, and new
ways of seeing offers a kind of growth that cannot be replicated at
home.”

Remarkably, the highly skilled 28-year-old artist who won first place
this year, Mitesh Tedulkar told the audience he has never left Goa
yet. He later told me he grew up living in the same ancestral house
that dominates his winning entry, in the Feira Baixa neighborhood of
Mapusa. Now, the prospect of leaving his home for the first time is
“both exciting and a little overwhelming in the best way. In Portugal,
I’m hoping to learn, grow and connect with people who appreciate art.
Most of all, I’m looking forward to representing where I come from and
bringing those experiences back home. My dream as an artist is to keep
growing to reach a point where my work can touch people across
cultures, start conversations, and leave a lasting impression. More
than success, I want longevity, a journey where I continue evolving
and creating for many years.”

The depth and quality of this year’s Fundação Oriente award talent
pool is highly impressive, but what is truly satisfying to experience
– a real kind of balm – is how relevant and rooted these artists
concerns are to our context in India’s smallest state. For me, this
alone provoked genuine deep relief, and it was also the case with some
of the works on display in Makers and Materials: Goa Past and Present
curated by Leandre D’Souza with Dr. Kelli Wood at Sunaparanta in
Altinho, where I was especially blown away by the dreamy paddy fields
landscape pictured on this page, by the veteran Pradeep Naik.

To be clear, the idea that great art should resonate where it is seen
has no nativist implications, but it does require tuning in to what
might work where. To that end, I greatly appreciate that Arthshila (it
is an excellent arts centre in Nachinola) and curator Shaunak
Mahbubani chose the Mumbai-based “East Indian” artist Saviya Lopes to
anchor part of their new exhibition, which is also open into next
year, with her deeply moving elegy to a grandfather who died in Sierra
Leone, “I learned that the ocean/was not a distance for you.../it was
a bridge/ Between Vasai and Freetown/ you built a life suspended/
between continents/ between brown earth/ and blue horizon/ between the
creole you never knew/ and the creole you found/ waiting for you in
another land.”

Lopes says that “I feel that there is a natural affinity for me here
in Goa because the emotional and cultural codes of this place mirror
so much of what has shaped my own family or even my growing up years
in Vasai. Many families here know what it means to have relatives
working overseas, building lives in distant places while still sending
love, money, and memory back home. Many also know the weight of
letters that travelled across oceans, the longing that we see in
photographs or even the quiet resilience of women who have held the
house together while the men were away at sea or abroad. So it feels
like the work is being shown in a place that already understands its
emotional landscape. And honestly, bringing my grandfather’s story
here feels less like exhibiting work and more like returning it to a
familiar shore.I hope viewers feel that shared rhythm of becoming,
belonging, and remembering across coastlines.”