‘Bombed - A Trilogy’ 2022

‘Bombed - A Trilogy’ exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum 9-21 November 2022 collated a series of works created over eleven years exploring the WWII bombing blitzes in Coventry, Birmingham and Dresden, between Britain and Germany. The combined-arts installation comprises painting, dance and poetry performance, sound and film with oral histories from blitz survivors. from the three cities Music, video animations, stage constructions and choreographic concepts have all been created by the artist have ax unifying matrix, a synthesis of the ‘parts’. Dance work ‘Codes’, using digital sound and sensors, was performed for the first time with the digital sound collaborativley created with Ben Neal (Psicon Lab)- Creative Technologist. ‘Bomed - A Trilogy’ followed ‘Bombed A moonlight Sonata-Part 1’ at Herbert Gallery 2012; ‘Bombed A moonlight Sonata-Part 2’ Dresden for the Szen:Europa festival 2019; ‘Bombed-Full Circle’ at Warstone Lane Cemetery, Birmingham 2021.

‘Bombed - A Trilogy’ ( 9-21 November 2022)

Event: Exhibition installation Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, UK

Location: Coventry UK

Host and support: Herbert Gallery and Museum.

Funded by: Arts Council of England and UK Lottery Heritage Fund

‘Bombed - A Moonlight Sonata Part II’ 2019, Dresden

This is an extract from the performance of 'Bombed - A Moonlight Sonata II' performed on 12th October 2019 at Zentralwerk, an ex-muitions factory in Dresden,...

Event: Live performance and painting installation set in refurbished, ex-munitions bomb-making factory ‘Zentralwerk. This cross-generational and cross-cultural work featured dancers from Birmingham and Dresden and oral history from blitz survivors Hanna Kirsten and Joan Edkins.

Location: Zentralwerk, Dresden, Germany at the Festival ‘Szene:Europa’

Commissioned by: Societaetstheatre, Dresden, Germany

‘Bombed - A Moonlight Sonata - Part I’ 2011 , Coventry

'Bombed - A Moonlight Sonata' was performed at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, West Midlands, UK in June 2011. It explores the WW2 Coventry Blitz bombing raid of 1940, code named by the Germans 'Moonlight Sonata' after a composition by Ludwig Van Beethoven. The work also comments on the current global conflicts and fears of terrorism and bombing. The performance work fuses the battling of break-dancing, martial arts and painting and alludes to code-breaking, the German 'Enigma' machine and bombing raids. The dialogue is from an interview, by the artist, with Joan Edkin who experienced the bombing raids first hand. Territory building and victory seem to be part of our heritage, from a feudal past, and one questions the relevance of a such a futile cycle of destruction to contemporary and future multi-cultural living. Saranjit Birdi January 2015

Event: A combined-arts performance and four-week exhibition with installation.

Host and support: Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry UK

Funded by: Arts Council of England