Goa Familia is an initiative conceived as an evolving archive that explores multidimensional aspects of family histories. We are keen to research and document still-imagery like photographs in any available format including framed prints, albums, negatives and even ancestral heirlooms and other assorted memorabilia. This material will be augmented through recorded conversations as well as the compilation of existing oral and published material. Over time, we envision the archive to become a participatory space for people to contribute personal and collective stories that engage with notions such as private and public, religious and secular, political and popular.

As a community project, the initiative aims to begin with the mapping of Panaji, and gradually extend its outreach across Goa. We seek to chronicle, and if need be, help to preserve family archives that feed into the larger cultural milieu by recognizing and celebrating local histories at a time of unprecedented globalization. Looking back from a digitally advanced time, we now have the rare opportunity to safeguard these objects and memories which have survived the passage of time, in order to examine perceptions of identity, autobiography and belonging, by engaging with the complexities of rootedness, migration and dislocation. These are emotional experiences that translate the past and present in interesting ways.

Photography has been central in channeling and preserving memory over the last 150 years in India; it enriches our knowledge of people, places, and events. As photos are infused with the power to transcend time and space, they also alter and complicate known hierarchies of social interaction by making visible: presences and absences, inclusions and exclusions of community life.

Against a background of swiftly changing vocabularies of the contemporary, this physical + digital repository will attempt to bring varied unseen yet vital stories into the public sphere so as to collaboratively focus on generating a people’s history through a multiplicity of voices.

The Project compilations will be developed into an interdisciplinary showcase that will be part of the Serendipity Arts Festival, December 2019.

Project Head: Lina Vincent

Creative Collaborator: Akshay Mahajan

In affiliation with Rahaab Allana, Curator of Alkazi Foundation for the Arts.

OPEN CALL

What does a family photograph mean to you? Is it a map of where you come from? A reminder of past times, memories of grandmother’s stories, keepsakes and personal histories…? Here is an opportunity to be part of a community initiative that celebrates the local!

What to contribute?

Goa Familia is an evolving archive that holds Goan family histories at its heart. We are keen to research and document the following:

Still-imagery like photographs, in any available format including framed prints, albums, negatives and slides

Ancestral heirlooms and other assorted memorabilia

Postcards and letters

Any other material that reflects memories of 'Goa and Goans'

How to contribute?

Photographs/archival materials that are scanned : You can send the scanned photographs ( 300 DPI, RGB Mode) to us via email. The scans can be of both sides of the photograph if it contains any written or printed content.

Please include all or any of the following details, as available in the form below

Approximate date of photo/image

Photographer or Studio name

Subject of photo/image

Persons featured in the photo/image

Location in the photo/image

Any other significant detail

Photographs/archival materials that are not scanned: If you are based in Goa, you can reach us via email. We will assist in the scanning of the materials.

Email - [email protected]

Terms & Conditions

• By contributing to the project, you, the contributor, agree to it being used in publications, exhibitions, World Wide Web, social media platforms and presentations.
• The Contributor understands that he/she cannot hold SAF liable for any misuse of the said data/information by any third party.
• By giving the permission of use of the submission, the Contributor is not giving up any copyright rights that the Contributor may hold.