Savia Viegas
Savia Viegas | |
|---|---|
Viegas in 2025 | |
| Born | Maria Savia Viegas 30 October 1957 Carmona, Goa, India |
| Alma mater | Elphinstone College |
| Occupations | Writer, artist |
| Notable work | Let me tell you about Quinta |
| Spouse |
Anoop Bablani (m. 1979) |
| Website | saviaviegas |
Maria Savia Viegas (born 30 October 1957)[1] is an Indian artist, writer, curator and academic from the village of 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.
Early and personal life
Maria Savia Viegas was born on 30 October 1957[1] in the village of Xetmalem, Carmona, Goa. Her mother, Berta Elisa Viegas, taught embroidery locally and this influenced Savia's later artistic engagements.[2]
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.[1]
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.[3]
Career
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.[4]
Artistic work
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.[5][6]
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.[7]
Other professional roles
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.[8]
Themes and approach
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.[6]
Exhibitions
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.[6]
Reception and impact
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.[2]
Works
- The Bicycle Diaries, co-authored with her husband Anoop Bablani
- Tales from the Attic
- In the Hour of Eclipse
- Let me tell you about Quinta
- Eddi and Didi
- Abha Nama
References
- ^ a b c "Savia Viegas : Biography". saviaviegas.in. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ a b "A tribute in tales and thread: Carmona's Savia Viegas narrates her mother's stories through embroidery". oHeraldo. 1 April 2024. Retrieved 11 October 2025.
- ^ Colaco, Kimberly (3 June 2024). "This Goan couple's love language is exploring on a cycle". Goa Travel News on Gomantak Times. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ "Stitching Stories with Savia Viegas". oHeraldo. 4 May 2024. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ "When denim becomes the canvas for stories of the past". Gomantak Times. 7 April 2024. Retrieved 11 October 2025.
- ^ a b c "Stories on a quilt". The Navhind Times. 4 April 2024. Retrieved 11 October 2025.
- ^ Das, Arti (26 April 2024). "Savia Viegas Carmona, talking-quilt exhibition at Museum of Goa, denim quilts". The Hindu. Retrieved 11 October 2025.
- ^ "Collaborative Quilt Chronicles". 25 July 2024. Retrieved 11 October 2025.