“Serendip” appears three times in Sinhala (a script used in Sri Lanka) on the top, left to right, shadowed in Farsi (used in Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere) on the bottom, right to left.
“Serendip” is the Old Persian name for the island Sri Lanka (also known as Ceylon) off the southern tip of India.
The name “Serendip” descends from the Sanskrit word Siṃhaladvīpa (“Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island”).
The Three Princes of Serendip is the English version of an Italian story published in Venice in 1557, a translation of part of Amir Khusrau’s 1302 Persian fairy tale Hasht-Bihisht (هشت بهشت, “The Eight Paradises”).
Amy happened to be driving by this house just as workers were hammering the “for sale” sign into the front yard in January 2021. Serendipity, from “Serendip.”
“Serendip” is part of a 2021 triptych by Susana Darwin, joined by “After El Lissitzky (‘Proun Vrashchenia’)” on the left and “Queen Palm” on the right.