This is a permanent exhibition at the Museum. For the past decade, Subodh Kerkar has been engaged with Goa’s history. Deeply influenced by the ocean, the waves that unfurl across the 100 kms of Goa’s coast have carved and shaped rocks and also ideas, dreams and narratives. The state changed hands several times, most notably languishing under Portuguese rule for 450 years, and many precious influences have survived the onslaught of time and can be traced to antiquity. Dr. Subodh was very fascinated with all these forces, as well as stories that connected them that unknowingly, history became a footnote to almost every work he created. He decided to work on sculptures, drawings, paintings, installations, videos and documentaries in response to Goa’s histories.

Histories of Goa, is the fruit of collective endeavour, with several Goan artists joining Subodh in this exhibition. It is an artistic exercise and a unique pedagogical experiment in narrating history through a contemporary idiom. The aim of the exhibition is to stir up histories, to dig into the recesses of historical archives, memories and celebrate the connectedness of all cultures. The works employ an investigative use of media, from organic matter such as mussel shells and coconuts, to physical fragments of history itself such as obsolete fishing boats and antique Chinese soup spoons. Disparate substances are employed in progressively unconventional compositions that manipulate space and scale, as well as time and texture.

The artists presented here are: Subodh Kerkar, Siddharth Kerkar, Harshada Kerkar, Kedar Dhondu, Ramdas Gadekar, Sailesh Dabolkar, Shilpa Naik, Sweety Joshi, Sachin Naik, Santosh Morajkar, Friso Witteveen, Kausalya Gadekar, Siddharth Gosavi, Shripad Gurav, Bhisaji Gadekar, Sebastian Kusenberg, Kalidas Mhammal, Soumitrimayee Paital, Vitesh Naik, Pradeep Naik, Viraj Naik, Vaibhav Kitlekar.