The ongoing project involves the documentation of oral histories through interviews with families, the digitisation of albums and the subsequent curation and writing for exhibition making and publication.
Goa Familia is an evolving digital repository that strives to create an inclusive visual archive of Goan social and cultural history through the documentation of family albums and oral histories. It is developed with the support of Serendipity Art Foundation by collaborative curators Lina Vincent and Akshay Mahajan. The project has been growing since 2019, with three exhibitions presented for Serendipity Arts Festival in the years 2019, ‘22 and ‘23, along with online engagement in 2020-21. The project is primarily about memory in its various definitions and manifestations, which spring from personal and collective experiences; linked to private and public spaces. The stories revolve around diverse moments recorded in albums and pictures; they transcend time and space while offering glimpses into multidimensional aspects of family histories that stand as quiet markers of societal transitions. Photography, as an intrinsic tool of documentation and visual archiving, represents these very transitions and the ever-expanding possibilities of its own technical advancement over the decades. The material documented by Goa Familia provides plural perspectives into understanding Goa and Goans, today.
Goa Familia continues to be invested in this vast ocean of oral and photographic history, and invites families and individuals to share their stories with this evolving repository. Goa Familia acts as a facilitator for dialogue between individuals and groups who are actively working with research and documentation of oral histories that find form in photographic material.
Image Courtesy: Serendipity Arts Festival & Christina Dedhia