The idea for the festival came to Jaya Ramchandani when she was studying astronomy in the Netherlands. Fascinated by concepts and laws in Quantum physics, she was disheartened to find that these were all simply confined to books and weren’t reaching the general public. It was this, together with a certain dissatisfaction with the education system, which urged her to share her knowledge using non-conventional means with others. She initially decided to conduct a series dedicated to children to dispel certain myths about science, but later felt the need to reach out to a wider audience. The five-day festival, beginning January 14, focusing on light will have four main themes.
‘Light and life’ which will explore light as a universal symbol of life and its role in our culture, architecture and religion. ‘Seeing and Perceiving’ will focus on light and vision and its myriad connections to perception of reality. The ‘Our Universe’ theme
will follow the journey of light and give one a clearer picture about abstract themes like infinity. The ‘Light in Technology’ theme will highlight how humans have exploited light from radio waves to gamma rays.
What’s attractive about the festival is that there are no long, tedious and uninteresting sessions scheduled, where formulae and abstract concepts will be thrown at the participants. “We’re trying to make each session a collaboration
between two experts- a scientist and an artist for example. Artists are the right people to turn education into an engaging and enlightening experience. We don’t want people to have a passive experience at the festival. We want them to be able to
touch, experience and play around with various things. We want education to happen without people knowing it and this can only happen when they’re having fun. Hence the highlight of the festival will be its interactive workshops, screenings, performances, installations and exhibitions,” Tanushri Shukla, one of the hosts, says.
A digital product manager and entrepreneur, Shukla confesses to hating science when she was in school. She later found that it had the same truths to reveal as spirituality and philosophy, only in a different language. She promises the festival will break notions about how dull science can be. Participants will be able to relate to the concepts and see its applicability in
their daily lives. At other festivals, ‘light’ is spoken of in terms of technology. Here the ‘light’ is used almost metaphorically, touching all aspects from philosophy to culture and religion. It is the first time that a festival will be held where cross disciplinary scientists, artists and philosophers among others will share ideas and communicate on all aspects of light.
“We’ve seen science festivals
and we’ve also seen art
festivals, but we’ve not seen
an intersection of the two,”
Shukla says.
The host thought of light
as it is the most democratic
and cuts across all schools of
thought, culture, religion and
affects each one of us directly.
The festival is well timed as
2015 has been declared the
International Year of Light by
the United Nations.
Artists from Japan,
Netherlands and Brazil have
recently signed up and the
hosts expect around 50,000
people to attend the festival.
A walking route has been
planned through Panjim
from the Goa Science Centre
to Kala Academy and to the
Immaculate conception
Church with light installations,
exhibitions and performances.
The sessions will take
place from January 14 to 18,
while the exhibitions will be
on until the end of the
month. The festival has no
entry fee and is open to all.
The hosts are seeking proposals
from scientists, artists
and others for workshops,
talks and screenings.
