Poulomi Desai

Poulomi Desai is a British photographer, multi-media artist, curator and community worker.[1] A self-taught outsider artist originally inspired by a street theatre background, her works are performative, textual, image based, and acoustic. She works with collaborative working processes which evolve through research, learning and action to examine the elusive, creating large scale photographs, performances and outdoor sound installations.

Life

Desai was born in Hackney,[1] but moved to Harrow aged ten. At the age of 13, she helped to found Hounslow Arts Cooperative Theatre. Finding her Harrow school a culture shock, she left school at sixteen.[2] She co-founded the first South Asian LGBTTQ campaigning organisation, Shakti, in 1987 and also co-founded the first HIV / AIDs charity in India, the Naz Foundation International in 1991. From 1994 to 1996 she was a resident performer at the Watermans Arts Centre, with the regular 'One Nation under a Groove' comedy nights. She had a role in Parv Bancil's satirical farce Papa Was a Bus Conductor, and toured with The Dead Jalebis, a spoof rock band, and the Sycophantic Sponge Bunch, a comedy trio.[1]

In 2000 she created a sound installation for the Mead Gallery, and was a creative producer for 'Open', a showcase of digital art by young people funded by the Arts Council of England.[1] Commissions and exhibitions include The Serpentine Gallery, London, The Science Museum, London, The Queens Museum, New York, The Oxford Gallery, Kolkatta, and The Photographers Gallery, London. In 2010, she set up the Usurp Art Gallery and Studios, the first and only artist-led creative space and studios in the London Borough of Harrow.[3] She was commissioned by the Google Cultural Institute and Sound and Music in 2015 to curate an exhibition for International Women's Day.[4] In 2017, she curated We are the Lions, the first comprehensive exhibition on the 1978-78 Grunwick strike.[5][6]

Desai is a Leverhulme Research Fellow at Heritage Quay Archives and the British Music Collection.[7] She has written for Creative Camera, Dazed and Confused, the British Journal of Photography, The Guardian, and the New York Times.

Works
  • Red threads: the South Asian queer connection in photographs. London: Millivres Prowler, 2003.
  • Out of Place. Raw Nerve Books
  • Different. Phaidon.

References
  1. Alison Donnell (2002). "Desai, Polomi". In Alison Donnell (ed.). Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture. Routledge. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-134-70025-7.
  2. Dakin, Melanie (April 19, 2010). "Hair exhibition opens in West Harrow". Waterford Observer. Retrieved June 5, 2012.
  3. Ian Proctor, New art gallery for West Harrow, MyLondon, 15 February 2010. Accessed 26 November 2020.
  4. "International Women's Day - Google Arts & Culture". Google Cultural Institute. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  5. Aaditya Kaza and Anand Pillai, Grunwick Strike: Short Jayaben stood tall among titans, Asian Voice, 29 October 2016. Accessed 26 November 2020.
  6. "With Georgie Fame, John Simpson and Poulomi Desai, Robert Elms - BBC Radio London". BBC. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  7. "December - University of Huddersfield". www.hud.ac.uk. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
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