Some of London's leading cultural institutions are joining forces with the Indian organisation Serendipity Arts to stage a major festival celebrating South Asian creativity.
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), Science Museum and Natural History Museum are among the partners for Serendipity Arts Festival London, which will take over Exhibition Road and South Kensington's cultural quarter between 19-27 June 2027.
The festival, which is in partnership with the Great Exhibition Road Festival led by Imperial College, will also be joined by the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Geographical Society, Royal College of Art (RCA) and Royal College of Music, which are all participating.
The festival will feature established and emerging artists from India and its diaspora, with a programme spanning visual art, music, dance, new media and food. Events will take place in galleries, concert halls, cafés and outdoor spaces.
Shefali Munjal, the co-founder and patron of Serendipity Arts, said: “South Asian creativity cannot be understood through a single discipline, tradition or geography. It lives as much in food, sound and movement as it does in a gallery.”
Six women curators have been appointed: Veeranganakumari Solanki and Nancy Adajania (new media), Latika Gupta (visual arts), Preethi Athreya (dance), Sneha Khanwalkar (music) and Elizabeth Yorke (culinary arts).
Kristian Volsing, a senior curator at V&A South Kensington, tells The Art Newspaper the partnership is “an incredibly timely collaboration”, ahead of the museum's exhibition South Asia Now: Fashion. Art. Design. at V&A East in spring 2027 and the reopening of its South Asia Gallery in 2028.
He added that the festival would create an “opportunity to centre South Asian creative talent”, with the programming “reflecting London's diversity and creating a welcoming space for all communities”.
The festival builds on Serendipity Arts’ annual event in Goa, India, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2025. Since launching in 2016, it has attracted more than one million visitors and participants and supported over 10,000 artists. The organisation introduced its work to London in June this year through two public projects with the Science Museum and Great Exhibition Road Festival. Other international partnerships this year include collaborations with the National Pavilion of India at the Venice Biennale, Rencontres d'Arles, the RCA and the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap) in Paris.
The Royal Geographical Society will develop an exhibition inspired by objects in its collections relating to the Indian subcontinent. Its director, Joe Smith, tells The Art Newspaper: “Applying creative methods and cross-cultural perspectives to these items will uncover different stories and learnings, deepening the connection between past and present and helping us see the world differently.”
He added: “We hope visitors to the exhibition find the experience enriching and leave considering how they can learn from times, places and cultures that may be different from their own.”
The partnership will also extend to India, with London's Natural History Museum presenting its Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Goa festival this December. Further programme details will be announced in the coming months.