POULOMI DESAI

Augmented sitar, noise, electronics, performances, photography, compositions + sound art. Full archive in development of multimedia exhibitions, workshops + theatre tours. See menu links + www.usurp.org.uk

[poulomidesai]

Hi Poulomi,

I came across some of your music on the Disruptive Frequencies compilation. I also describe myself as an outsider artist; primarily, I'm an improvising singer, poetic writer and director of experimental theatre. My last album 'Superstition' has a very good review in the December edition of The Wire and can be heard here: https://corbettvsdempsey.bandcamp.com/album/superstition. My next project is an album based on texts that I've written and performed on a theme of war - especially the war in Ukraine. The texts in their raw form can be heard here: https://soundcloud.com/nikolaigalen/sets/mars-venus-solo-vox. I'm looking for a collborator to work with on making the album using the performed texts as the starting point. Please let me know if you could be interested. I can be reached by mail at <[email protected]. or WhatsApp on [phone].

Cheers

Nikolai

Hello Nikolai, thanks for getting in touch. In principle yes but as well as being a carer for my mum I am a bit overwhelmed - I can barely update social media! What is your timeline for this? My email is [email protected] . Better to email. Thanks

[poulomidesai]

One of the six awardees of The Oram Awards! Check out all of us and previous winners in the link. As one of the few South Asian women in the UK making experimental music and sound, this is brilliant!

PRS Foundation, the UK’s leading funder of new music and talent development, together with The New BBC Radiophonic Workshop created The Oram Awards celebrating innovation in music, sound and related technologies by the next generation of forward thinking women and gender minority artists.Named after Daphne Oram, one of the founding members of the original BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the awards hope to build on her legacy. Daphne worked at the workshop with others including Delia Derbyshire, Glynis Jones, Jenyth Worsley, Maddalena Fagandini and Elizabeth Parker, creating music for the distant future, the distant past and inside the mind. She played a vital role in establishing women at the forefront of innovation, in newly emerging audio technologies, in the UK and around the world. Whilst there are many women and gender minority artists innovating in music and sound, their work and their voices often struggle to be heard and we're missing the opportunity to celebrate role models for the next generation.

[poulomidesai]

Poulomi Desai - Hundred Heroines

2020 Template

Delighted to have chosen as one of the Hundred Heroines of Photography by the Hundred+ Heroines UK charity, for my decades of photography work with queer communities, my work in Bangladesh and India, and facilitating women who have survived domestic violence to form their own photography groups for campaigning.

[poulomidesai]

Organic portraits considering the effects of controlling the uncontrollable. Part of Autograph's commissioning project Care | Contagion | Co

[poulomidesai]

This gem, the Mini Oramics was delivered (under all Covid safety rules and cleaning) recently for me to learn and compose with. Big thanks to Tom Richards, the brill musician, and maker of this incarnation of Daphne Oram's Oramics genius. I am really appreciative of Tom's kindness and thoughtful offer as it's been more than tough and I hope to devote some time to creating something meaningful - the circles I have marked here on the left are fitting metaphors and sound tremendously scary. More info on the machine and Tom's work: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36651270 

[poulomidesai]

Publicity flyer for new commission

[poulomidesai]

All that follows is true… Dr. Walford Bodie, The Electric Wizard of the North, was the most famous stage hypnotist who ever lived. No hypnotist has ever come close to achieving his fame or fortune. A household name in his day, he was for a short time the world’s highest paid entertainer. Eccentric, eclectic, electric…...MORE

Research on “La Belle Electra and the amazing Dr. Walford Bodie” for a commission by Radiophrenia.

[poulomidesai]

One of my duos, Conspirators of Pleasure (www.conspire.org.uk) headlining this eclectic, quadruple gig on 23rd Feb at Poplar Union, London. Join us for soundscapes, feminist voices, anti-caste songs, twisted guitars and hopeful, humanitarian politics to dream new dreams. More info and tix: http://www.usurp.org.uk/event/mishti-dance-presents/

[poulomidesai]

Ewa Justka + Poulomi Desai - live at Wysing Polyphonic Festival

© Ewa Justka + Poulomi Desai "Back in the wooden shack, Ewa Justka and Poulomi Desai deliver magnificent fork-in-the-socket jolts of noise, built out of hard...

"Back in the wooden shack, Ewa Justka and Poulomi Desai deliver magnificent fork-in-the-socket jolts of noise, built out of hardware and abused strings; their energy-saving strobe bulb is like a possessed Ikea demonstration...This is one of the most valuable music festivals in the country – one that refuses, inspirationally, to put anything neatly together. Curated this year by avant-gardists Camae Ayewa (AKA Moor Mother) and Paul Purgas, it’s a loose study of corporeality and groove. Ben Beaumont-Thomas - The Guardian.

Ewa Justka is a polish electronic acid-technoise artist, self taught instruments builder and electronics teacher based in London.  http://ewajustka.tumblr.com

Full line -up: AÏSHA DEVI, AGF POEMPRODUCER, CATERINA BARBIERI, CHARLES-MITCHENER (NEIL CHARLES & ELAINE MITCHENER), DJ HARAM, EWA JUSTKA &  POULOMI DESAI, HARRGA, IMRAN PERRETTA, LAFAWNDAH, LARAAJI, LAST YEARZ INTERESTING NEGRO & PHOEBE COLLINGS-JAMES, MOOR MOTHER, MUTAMASSIK, ORETHA, PHILOMENE PIRECKI, RKSS, SYNAPTIC ISLAND, YATTA

[poulomidesai]

Here, there and in-between: Concert 3, Here – Performance

Thursday 7 February 20196.30-7.45pmUpper Gallery,London College of Communication Elephant & Castle, London, SE1 6SB.Free and open to all - booking essential. This series of three concerts curated by Cathy Lane for Reel Lives will feature performances and works from emergent and established sound artists from the UK and Europe. Through these events you will be invited to sonically engage with aspects of the voice and language, places near and far and recent and current events through the different styles, ears and perspectives of each of the artists. The performances will take place in the main gallery space at LCC which will feature an eight channel system surrounding the audience to reconfigure the gallery as an immersive listening space. Artists include Ain Bailey, Caroline Bergvall, Kate Carr, Viv Corringham, Poulomi Desai, Caroline Devine, Lisa Hall and Hannah Kemp-Welch, Cathy Lane, Lina Lapelyte, Brona Martin, Else M’bala and Karen Power. Concert 3: Here This concert will feature works and performances from Kate Carr, Viv Corringham, Poloumi Desai and Elsa M’bala.

Presenting a remixed composition from the original 16 channel sound work, featuring the poems of Poulomi’s mother, Niru Desai and outsider utterances encompassing ‘real and synthesised South Asian female voices’, suggesting acoustic illusions, hybridised linguistics and musical earworms “Shadows in Dreamland - six acts in intersections”. This is the final concert of the series curated by Cathy Lane. This concert will feature works and performances from Kate Carr, Viv Corringham, Poulomi Desai and Elsa M’bala. 

[poulomidesai]

Work in progress...I am repairing, mutating, beautifying and inserting home-made electronic, interactive bits into a sad, discarded, NF (i.e. National Front) scarred, student sitar rescued from a skip in a school by my artist friend, Matt Jordan. This is the fourth one now that will join in performances and be with the luminous one, the ghost in a shell, and disco diva. Love being able to rescue and resuscitate these forlorn creatures  - the opposite of course of what needs to be done to the far right...

[poulomidesai]

Performing at the ninth Wysing Polyphonic Festival of experimental music on Sat 1 Sept with Ewa Justka. A thread of mysticism and spiritual energy runs throughout the programme, weaving through sonic and performative works of great emotional and political power. Wysing Polyphonic aims to reveal and celebrate the hidden energies and potentiality that flows through us all. Programmied by Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother) and Paul Purgas (Emptyset) Tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wysing-polyphonic-tickets-45971026578  It’s a great line-up and affordable too!

[poulomidesai]

A London festival by and for punx of colour. 22-24 June 2018

Looking forward to taking part in the Decolonise Festival this week.

“Decolonise Fest is a DIY punk festival collectively organised by and for people of colour. We are the global majority. We will celebrate all the brilliant punx descended (through one or both parents) from the original inhabitants of Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Australasia, North America, and the islands of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean.As we do this, we are rewriting the rules and challenging those labels. We are DIY Diaspora Punx. We are reasserting our place in punk and want to showcase the amazing, creative and talented contributions punx of colour have made to the punk scene since its inception.We are loud and proud and demand the space we deserve.We are uncompromising and strong and will dismantle the white supremacy and patriarchy that infests the punk scene.We will talk about racism but not in a way that centres whiteness or prioritises the feelings of white people. No white tears.We are truly putting the threat back into punk again.We will decolonise punk and make it a space for our siblings.We will not tolerate racism, ageism, sexism, transphobia, classism, ableism, homophobia or fatphobia.This is a celebratory event. White allies are welcome but remember this event will focus on people of colour. Decolonising our past to decolonise our future.”

[poulomidesai]

SOUNDLING FESTIVAL!  8 - 11 March 2018

For International Women’s Day. I am performing with an augmented sitar on 9 March at The Amersham Arms, New Cross, London.

More info and tix: soundlingfest.co.uk  @soundlingfest

Founded by composer Megan Steinberg.

[poulomidesai]

My VLF recordings and artworks produced at the Heritage Quay Archive as part of my Leverhulme Fellowship, will be exhibited at the Electric Spring Festival in Huddersfield. The electromagnetic radio recordings will be heard as a composed and performed piece in the SPIRAL (Spatialisation and Interactive Research Lab) offering spatial, interactive music composition, production, and sensoral control over 25 channels (+ 4 subs) in a 3D ambisonic environment. I will also be exhibiting the photographic glass plates, video and the two silk saris based on the British Music Collection. The festival is organised by Monty Adkins and Aaron Cassidy, and features  a coding lab symposium and international performers and composers. For the full line up during the week: www.electricspring.co.uk 

[poulomidesai]

Talk and workshop at Autograph. Art Activism Schools bring together writers, artists and activists to examine how issues of social justice and human rights can relate to an art practice. Over three days, an exploration of the work of artist activists was made, while discovering practical approaches to developing a political arts practice. Co-developed between Lucy Keany (Autograph ABP) and Will Essilfie.

[poulomidesai]

My presentation from 46:30 onwards with an introduction at Nottingham Contemporary Art Gallery.