Nine creative practitioners explore the traces left behind by people and experiences in ‘Totally Transient Truly Indelible’, the culmination of Sunaparanta’s 10-month Art Initiator Lab
VINIKA VISWAMBHARAN
NT BUZZ
Everything is transient, yet some things leave marks that time cannot erase. A familiar fragrance, the echoes of a place, an ordinary object or a childhood memory can continue to shape us long after the moment has passed. This idea of impermanence and endurance forms the foundation of ‘Totally Transient Truly Indelible’, the latest exhibition by the fifth cohort of the Sunaparanta Art Initiator Lab (SAIL), opening at Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts, Altinho on July 16.
Bringing together works that explore memory, ecology, heritage, identity, landscape, and everyday experience, the exhibition also marks the culmination of a 10-month journey through SAIL, Sunaparanta’s mentorship programme for creative practitioners.
Conceived and guided by art historian and mentor Lina Vincent, SAIL was created to bridge the gap between creative education and sustained artistic practice. “The programme was created to offer a properly designed curriculum that allows people from different creative fields to expand both their personal and professional creative practices,” explains Vincent. “It gives them the space to explore, incubate ideas and develop new skills.”
Supported by patron of Sunaparanta, Isheta Salgaocar’s vision for the programme and developed in close collaboration with Sunaparanta’s programme director Leandre D’Souza, each year, around 50 to 60 applications are received, with only about nine or 10 selected. “We’re looking for people who need a space like this, those who are searching, questioning, and ready to grow,” Vincent notes.
Participants residing in Goa, meet every few weeks while engaging with mentors from India and abroad. Workshops, field visits, discussions, and research become part of a collaborative creative journey, allowing them to challenge their own practice while learning from one another.
Vincent states that this year’s exhibition is entirely participant-led. “They develop the concept, choose the title and produce the exhibition. We remain in the background as facilitators,” she says.
The show brings together the work of Ashita Matondkar, Greagan Ricardo Dias, Khusboo Biswal, Noella Fernandes, Pratik Naik, Rohit Asha Bhosle, Ruth Beatriz Costa, Sonia Rodrigues Sabharwal, Tammanna Aurora, and Vishwajeet Naik Desai. Working across painting, installation, photography, textiles, scent, sound, research and mixed media, each practitioner approaches the exhibition’s themes through a distinct perspective.
For visual artist and researcher Bhosle, the work began with his encounter at a tailor’s shop in his village of Marcel. “It wasn’t just a place of work. It held different archives, traces and memories of a tailor craftsman, Narayan Avte, who lived his life through a rationalist lens and believed deeply in scientific temper,” he says.
Rather than creating a biography, Bhosle’s installation responds to the presence that still lingers through objects, marks, and material residues. “The installation emerges from that encounter, where absence itself becomes a form of presence,” says the artist who credits SAIL with changing his approach to making art. “One of the biggest shifts for me has been moving beyond the studio. I now see research, dialogue and collaboration as integral to the making of the work.”
Artist Khusboo Biswal meanwhile turns to a cherished childhood memory that has shaped her artistic practice. “I will always remember my childhood days when a wild parrot chose to ‘adopt me’,” she recalls. “A completely free bird simply decided to stay close. That beautiful bond left a vibrant and indelible mark.”
That memory evolved into an ongoing exploration of parrots as symbols of storytelling and perception. “I’ve always wanted my art to evoke a lingering thought,” she says. “When one looks at these narratives of parrots, do we simply see a bird repeating voices, or do we see a reflection of our own human voices? Are we truly perceiving, or are we just parroting?” She adds that the SAIL mentorship helped deepen her research practice.
Visitors are also invited to engage with memory through smell. “Fragrance is one of the most transient of mediums,” says educator, and fragrance developer Ruth Beatriz Costa. “It cannot be held onto physically, yet it leaves lasting emotional impressions.” Costa treats scent not as perfume but as an archive. “While I had always been fascinated by perfumes, it was only when I began working with a perfumer that I realised scent could be something much more than a commodity,” she says. “It holds memory, collapsing time and bringing back people, places and moments with remarkable clarity.” Her installation, ‘Purument: Scent as an Intimate Archive’, explores how Goa’s rituals, domestic spaces and landscapes survive through fragrance. She hopes audiences become participants rather than observers. “If the work encourages them to pause, remember, contribute and recognise themselves in the memories of others, then it has done what I hoped
it would.”
Visitors will also encounter Ashita Matondkar’s reflections on mangrove landscapes, Greagan Ricardo Dias’ explorations of public objects and collective memory through cardboard and its materiality, Noella Fernandes’ investigations into place, memory and identity, Sonia Rodrigues Sabharwal’s wearable art inspired by Goa’s cultural heritage, Tammanna Aurora’s immersive sound-based practice, and Vishwajeet Naik Desai’s paintings documenting indigenous landscapes, traditions and tribal life.
In addition to this, VM Salgaocar Emerging Artist grantee Pratik Naik’s work will be showcased along with the participants.
More than presenting finished narratives, the exhibition embraces curiosity and the freedom to keep questioning. That openness to exploration, Vincent says, has always been at the heart of SAIL. “We encourage people to share work that is still evolving. The questions continue even after the exhibition ends.”
Beyond the exhibition, Vincent believes SAIL’s greatest achievement has been the creative community it has fostered over the past five years. Former participants regularly return to support new cohorts.
“For us, that’s one of the most rewarding things,” she says. In a state where creative opportunities remain limited, SAIL, she adds, aims to equip practitioners not only to make art but also to build sustainable creative careers in Goa.
(‘Totally Transient Truly Indelible’ opens on July 16, 6.45 p.m. The exhibition will remain open until August 5)
