Poulomi Desai is a queer musician, artist, curator and activist with South Asian roots, born in Hackney, London. Desai will give an improvised concert using a modified sitar with a range of exploratory devices such as modified cassette decks, circuit bent toys, optokinetic instruments, kitchen knives, and massage tools. Her sitar forms the basis for her sonic improvisation, and is a conscious response to the idea of »authenticity,« seeking to break the expectations of how a »sacred« instrument should be played, and the assumptions made upon the identity of the player herself. It is an allegorical antidote to the objectification of the »South Asian woman's body« in Bollywood cinema / popular culture and, in a broader sense, affirming her personal manifesto of noise as protest.
