Look up an advertisement about Goa and it will predictably have some assemblage of the words “ sun ,” “ sand ,” and “ sea .” But, really, s...
Look up an advertisement about Goa and it will predictably have some assemblage of the words “sun,” “sand,” and “sea.” But, really, such verbiage could feature in just about any description of a coastal tourism location. Accordingly, in a newly opened art exhibition at Panjim’s Sunaparanta Goa Center for the Arts, Vishvesh Kandolkar suggests that Goa has been set apart from the usual clichés of palm trees, surf, and other seaside imagery due to a visual culture that has incorporated an iconic Goan structure – the Basilica of Bom Jesus.
Visible in everything from tourism promos, souvenirs and Republic Day parade floats, Kandolkar – an architectural historian and professor at Goa’s College of Architecture – culls such evidence of the widespread representational use of the 16th-century church in his artistic debut, This is Not the Basilica!
Through his research-based installations, Kandolkar demonstrates how the Portuguese-era church, famous for holding the relics of St Francis Xavier (1506-1552), has come to stand in for Goa’s historical and regional difference in South Asia while becoming a victim of its own fame.
Goa: A Time that Was
Viewable until November 20 and part of the group exhibition Goa: A Time that Was, curated by Leandré D’Souza, Kandolkar’s works aim to showcase the long-standing Basilica as a living part of Goa rather than only an emblem of its past...
