Sunil Kant Munjal, founder of the Serendipity Arts Foundation, on the third edition of the annual festival, its challenges of scale, and workplace safety.
Are you satisfied with how the festival has grown since 2016?
In the beginning, in fact, most people thought we are talking through our hats. A lady told me that in India, you have to be very careful when you do scale. She advised that we do only two projects, and we did 52. Then, she came here and said she has never seen such quality and scale in India. So that was encouraging. And in year two, we became two times bigger. We had a tremendous response from institutions around the world, such as the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Met in New York. It has truly become global, based on the South Asian ethos of inclusivity and engagement.
What are you focusing on this year?
I think we are more organised this time. Also, we’re sending out messages about sustainability, through the materials that we are using and things that we are doing, from electric bicycles to recycling waste. We also have a lot more collaborations this year, projects which are interdisciplinary.We’re focusing a lot on education and research. There are 50 research projects going on right now and ideally, we would like to release a report a week.
What are the safety and inclusivity measures you’ve taken this time?
One is something that we have done from year one, which is wheelchair access. For deaf and mute visitors, we have sign language experts. For the visually challenged visitors, we have braille catalogues. We have maquettes of all the important pieces and curated walks. We have a place where everyone feels welcome.
Given the recent conversations about sexual harassment in the workplace, what measures have been taken at the festival to make for a safer work environment?
We have lots of conversation, lots of coaching, counselling, before every initiative. In our own offices, the policies are very strict and clear, and we spend hours talking to those who come to work at the festival. There’s a lot of serious work that goes on. We don’t make announcements. Some in the media are upset because I don’t talk to them about this. Because then the focus becomes only this and frankly to my mind, this is not the main conversation at all. We do enough ourselves. We don’t shout about what we do.
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