CHRISTINE MACHADO
NT BUZZ
Anika de Sousa Proença has come full circle. An event manager by profession, Proença has been dabbling in various arts like poetry, painting and music, ever since she was a little girl. In fact, she also attended summer camp at the Art Chamber-Galeria de Belas Artes, Calangute, where founder Yolanda de Sousa Kammermeier taught her to work with watercolours. “And now my first art exhibition is going to be taking place in the same place!” she says.
Proença states that earlier she used to paint only for herself. But over time, her collection of works grew. It was then that Kammermeier suggested holding an art show.
Titled ‘Portão de Prana’- The Gate of Life Force, the show will open on January 9 and will include over 30 works done in watercolours and acrylics on canvas.
“‘Portão’ is a Portuguese word, which means gate, entrance or the threshold, and ‘prana’ is Sanskrit for life force. Since Goa is the love of my life, this felt like a perfect representation of our culture and of me,” she explains, adding that her family lineage includes a mix of Portuguese and Goan descent. “So this show is also in memory of them and in memory of that lineage.”
All her artworks, she says, are crafted in meditation. “I started meditating as a way of understanding myself better. I needed a way to interpret that mystical journey, but words were not enough. So I started with lines in ink, and then the watercolors came in,” she explains, adding that her environment has also played a huge role in her works. “My works mostly feature a lot of blues and greens – the colours of Goa. I also love doing art in outside spaces because when it is crafted in the community, then you can actually see that play out in the works,” she says.
The art show will provide a mutual viewing ritual for the viewers. Elaborating on this, Proença states, “When I’m creating an artwork, I feel like I’m giving it life. All that energy that I poured into a piece is in it. So it is that energy that will be viewing the person back,” she says, adding that she hopes that her works will make the viewers discover something about themselves.
Given her love for poetry, Proença has also incorporated it into her art show. “At the end of the exhibition, there will be a little table that says, ‘take a poem, leave a dream’. I want people to write a dream that they have for Goa, for their villages, and their communities because I believe that when we take an idea that we’ve kept in our heads for so long, and we actually put it out there, whether it’s talking about it, or physically writing it down, it becomes something potent in the world,” she says.
This upcoming art show has also motivated her to go deeper into the art world. “I plan to start a community-based art centre that will be working less on hierarchies and more on circles. It will be an intersection of art and activism and culture and heritage. We’ll probably start with smaller events first and move on to a centre within a couple of years. In fact, most of the proceeds from this show will be going towards that,” she says. As for right now, Proença is nervous and excited about her first show. “I grew up in Saudi Arabia and I’ve always felt like the outsider here. But ever since the show was announced the whole community is coming out to support me. So it’s like a spiritual homecoming for me,” she says. “I’m emotional, anxious, but also full of joy.”
