Curators
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Sara Ahmed
Sara Ahmed is the founder of the Living Waters Museum and the benefactor of Goa Water Stories. She is an Adjunct Professor at IISER-Pune, holds a PhD in Environmental Sociology from the University of Cambridge, serves on the boards of WaterAid India, and Wetlands International South Asia and is the vice president for the Global Network of Water Museums.
She has 30 years of participatory research experience on water governance and gender, and applied research experience on water, livelihoods and social equity. She has been actively engaged in teaching and mentoring young development professionals in India, managing large and complex regional research portfolios on water, food security and climate change in Asia, and advising a range of development organisations and water networks globally.
Sara has published extensively on water governance and her last co-edited book is entitled, Diverting the Flow: Gender Equity and Water in South Asia (2012).
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Trusha Sawant
Trusha is the digital designer and curator of Goa Water Stories. She is instrumental in constructing this immersive, interactive and layered storytelling experience. Her thoughtful approach ensured a design narrative that was informative, engaging and evocative, ensuring the authenticity and individuality of each project and story’s narrative and author.
Trusha has established a distinguished career as a graphic designer and brand consultant with over 15 years of experience. Her expertise spans across brand identity, packaging, web, and communication design, providing her with a comprehensive understanding of visual communication.
She is an alumna of the Sir JJ Institute of Art in Mumbai, with a Master’s degree from Domus Academy in Milan, Trusha merges traditional design sensibilities with a modern approach. Her work is known for challenging design norms, blending local influences with global aesthetics, and offering strategic and fresh perspectives. She has consulted for design studios and startups worldwide, collaborating with top industry talent to build brands with lasting impact. As the founder of VillaCMYK, her independent design studio, Trusha continues to evolve her style and approach, with a strong inclination toward traditional print design, illustration, and typography. Beyond her commercial projects, she explores linocut and screen printing techniques in her personal work, reflecting her commitment to both innovation and heritage in design.
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Wenceslaus Mendes
Wenceslaus Mendes is a (documentary) filmmaker, artist, and independent researcher who engages with video and technology in theatre and performance and conceptual, immersive experiences and installation art projects that have travelled globally. He works in Advertising, Broadcast Television and Digital-Web, with over 25 years of industry experience, independently producing award-winning content. He is a cinematographer and editor by profession, practising and working with multimedia and mediums.
His practice lies within indigenous and tribal communities through shared concerns of land and water, environment, sustainability and climate change; documenting practices, oral culture and processes of ethno-technologies. He engages with the politics of food, consumption and the processes of 'knowledge' in its making and dissemination through building sensoriums. For him, the local (geospatial and temporal) and indigenous knowledge are both essential and critical towards building an inclusive and sustainable future. His research work lies at the intersection between race and caste across the subcontinent of India. Here the projects closely examine incidents of discrimination and prejudice, purity and segregation, the making of labour and the Indian Prison System. The process of 'co-labour-abling' is the methodology of making work; here, questions are raised and its process and outcomes, are defined together and conjoined with the community, environ and ecosystem from which the language of the work originates.
Goa Water Stories has been conceptualised and designed, which includes partnerships and collaboration with the various institutions in Goa, devising and conducting skill and knowledge-sharing workshops and conceiving and developing its dissemination – as labour and original work. This work and research of Wenceslaus Mendes is made possible by the patronage of Sara Ahmed and the support of the Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and the VM Salgaoncar Fellowship.
