Prescribing Memory

Subodh Kerkar has spent over three decades crafting a visual language rooted in the sea, salt, and soil of Goa. As the founder of the Museum of Goa, he has built one of India's few truly contemporary art spaces—one that champions accessibility, experimentation, and local voices. In conversation with Alfea Jamal, Kerkar speaks about his journey from physician to artist, making art outside elite spaces, and how history, politics, and poetry shape everything he creates.

- By Alfea Jamal

Your artistic journey began with medicine, moved to art, and now spans installations, sculpture, and curation. What keeps drawing you in as a creator?

Every child is an artist. My father, who was a painter and studied under Haldan Khan, encouraged me to draw landscapes and portraits, even though he never found success as an artist and spent his life as a teacher. But I never thought of art as a profession. I became a doctor, and soon realised that 90 per cent of my patients had the same illnesses, and there was no challenge. During the 1980s, British tourists were flooding Goa. I was treating loose motions, dysentery—and I thought, India has taken enough shit from the British for 150 years (laughs). I couldn't continue. So, I took up painting full time, and began exhibiting at the Taj Hotel in Goa.

But after two years, even painting became routine. I realised that being able to draw doesn't make you an artist—it only means you have the skill. To be an artist, you must have something to say. That was a turning point.

India is often described as chaotic, layered, and intensely sensory. How has that complexity influenced your design philosophy?

Life itself is complex. We live with a lot of paradoxes—things we don't like, contradictions we can't escape. In India today, freedom of expression is a serious concern. We live in an age of isolated communication. Everyone is talking, but what are they really saying?

I've been a student activist and a lifelong student of Gandhi. I've learned to oppose without hating. If I hate, I become like those I oppose. So yes, I am an artist, but I'm also an activist. My posts, my work, my voice—they're all vocal. I believe artists must be sensors, receptors, and transmitters of truth in society.

From fishermen to folk artists, you often bring marginalised narratives into your work. Is that a form of design activism for you?