https://en.bharatpedia.org/w/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Savia_ViegasSavia Viegas - Revision history2026-10-26T02:41:40ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.43.6https://en.bharatpedia.org/w/index.php?title=Savia_Viegas&diff=533671&oldid=prevManpreet23: created new entry2026-03-21T09:58:28Z<p>created new entry</p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{Short description|Indian artist and writer (born 1957)}}<br />
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2025}}<br />
{{Use Indian English|date=October 2025}}<br />
{{Infobox person<br />
| name = Savia Viegas<br />
| image = Savia Viegas in 2025.jpg<br />
| alt = <br />
| caption = Viegas in 2025<br />
| birth_name = Maria Savia Viegas<br />
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1957|10|30|df=yes}}<br />
| birth_place = [[Carmona, Goa|Carmona]], Goa, India<br />
| other_names = <br />
| spouse = {{marriage|Anoop Bablani|1979}}<br />
| children = <br />
| occupation = Writer, artist<br />
| alma_mater = [[Elphinstone College]]<br />
| years_active = <br />
| known_for = <br />
| notable_works = ''Let me tell you about Quinta''<br />
| awards = <br />
| website = {{URL|saviaviegas.in}}<br />
}}<br />
'''Maria Savia Viegas''' (born 30 October 1957)<ref name="OfficialBio">{{Cite web |title=Savia Viegas : Biography |url=https://saviaviegas.in/bio |access-date=2025-10-24 |website=saviaviegas.in}}</ref> is an Indian artist, writer, curator and academic from the village of [[Carmona, Goa|Carmona]] in South Goa. She is best known for her mixed-media works, including a project titled ''Carmona’s Talking Quilt'', that are a combination of community oral histories, up-cycled textiles and embroidery to explore Goan identity, memory and women's narratives.<br />
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==Early and personal life==<br />
Maria Savia Viegas was born on 30 October 1957<ref name="OfficialBio" /> in the village of Xetmalem, [[Carmona, Goa]]. Her mother, Berta Elisa Viegas, taught embroidery locally and this influenced Savia's later artistic engagements.<ref name="HeraldEmbroidery24">{{Cite web |date=2024-04-01 |title=A tribute in tales and thread: Carmona's Savia Viegas narrates her mother's stories through embroidery |url=https://www.heraldgoa.in/goa/wards-to-vaddos/a-tribute-in-tales-and-thread-carmonas-savia-viegas-narrates-her-mothers-stories-through-embroidery/44702/ |access-date=2025-10-11 |website=oHeraldo}}</ref><br />
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Viegas completed her schooling at St Pius X Convent, [[Orlim]], followed by college at [[Parvatibai Chowgule College]] and [[Elphinstone College]] in Mumbai. She later earned a doctorate in Ancient Indian Art.<ref name="OfficialBio" /><br />
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Viegas married Anoop Bablani in 1979. They love cycling together and this inspired them to a write a book together, ''Bicycle Diaries'', about the history of bicycles.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Colaco |first=Kimberly |date=2024-06-03 |title=This Goan couple's love language is exploring on a cycle |url=https://www.gomantaktimes.com/lifestyle/this-goan-couples-love-language-is-exploring-on-a-cycle |access-date=2025-10-24 |website=Goa Travel News on Gomantak Times |language=en}}</ref><br />
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==Career==<br />
After a period working in Mumbai, Viegas returned to her ancestral home in Carmona in 2005, where she founded a pre-primary school, Saxtti Kids, and focused her energies on writing, painting and curatorial work.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-05-04 |title=Stitching Stories with Savia Viegas |website=oHeraldo |url=https://www.heraldgoa.in/cafe/stitching-stories-with-savia-viegas/30853/ |access-date=2025-10-24 |language=en-US}}</ref><br />
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==Artistic work==<br />
One of Viegas's major works is Carmona's Talking Quilt, created in collaboration with her mother. It uses up-cycled denim from out-grown jeans, embroidered motifs, photographs and mixed-media panels to surface hidden stories of village life, memory and women's experience.<ref>{{Cite web |title=When denim becomes the canvas for stories of the past |url=https://www.gomantaktimes.com/lifestyle/when-denim-becomes-the-canvas-for-stories-of-the-past/ |access-date=2025-10-11 |website=Gomantak Times |date=7 April 2024 }}</ref><ref name="auto1">{{Cite web |title=Stories on a quilt |url=https://www.navhindtimes.in/2024/04/04/magazines/buzz/stories-on-a-quilt/ |access-date=2025-10-11 |website=The Navhind Times |date=4 April 2024 }}</ref><br />
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In a feature by ''The Hindu'', she is described as using denim quilts, embroidery and archival photographs to unpack Goan village histories, gendered craft practices and processes of memory.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Das |first1=Arti |title=Savia Viegas Carmona, talking-quilt exhibition at Museum of Goa, denim quilts |work=The Hindu |date=26 April 2024 |url=https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/art/savia-viegas-carmona-talking-quilt-exhibition-museum-of-goa-denim-quilts/article68098080.ece |access-date=2025-10-11}}</ref><br />
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==Other professional roles==<br />
Besides her art practice, Viegas is active as a curator and educator, facilitating creative writing workshops and exhibiting works that engage local communities, women's craft traditions and sustainable reuse of materials.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Collaborative Quilt Chronicles |date=25 July 2024 |url=https://www.femasiamagazine.com/collaborative-quilt-chronicles/ |access-date=2025-10-11}}</ref><br />
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==Themes and approach==<br />
Viegas's work often engages with the material traces of daily life—old jeans, embroideries, family stories—and re-configures them into visual narratives about identity, heritage and transformation. She emphasises the value of craft traditionally seen as women's work, and uses it to articulate cultural memory and belonging.<ref name="auto1"/><br />
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==Exhibitions==<br />
Her exhibition Carmona's Talking Quilt was held at the [[Museum of Goa]] (MOG) in Pilerne, Goa, where viewers could engage with textile works, photographic montages and embroidery panels that decode village-level narratives of the Goan hinterland.<ref name="auto1"/><br />
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==Reception and impact==<br />
Critics and commentators note that Viegas's quilts and multimedia works offer an alternative archive of Goan rural life and women's culture, tapping into oral storytelling, craft and material reuse to challenge dominant historical narratives.<ref name="HeraldEmbroidery24"/><br />
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==Works==<br />
* ''The Bicycle Diaries'', co-authored with her husband Anoop Bablani<br />
* ''Tales from the Attic''<br />
* ''In the Hour of Eclipse''<br />
* ''Let me tell you about Quinta''<br />
* ''Eddi and Didi''<br />
* ''Abha Nama''<br />
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==References==<br />
{{Reflist}}<br />
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==External links==<br />
{{Commons category}}<br />
* {{Official website}}<br />
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{{Authority control}}<br />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Viegas, Savia}}<br />
[[Category:1957 births]]<br />
[[Category:Living people]]<br />
[[Category:Indian women artists]]<br />
[[Category:Textile artists]]<br />
[[Category:Artists from Goa]]<br />
[[Category:People from South Goa district]]<br />
[[Category:Elphinstone College alumni]]<br />
[[Category:Women writers from Goa]]</div>Manpreet23