Birmingham’s Moseley Road Baths host migrant women show inside historic Gala Pool

The historic Gala Pool inside Birmingham’s iconic Moseley Road Baths is hosting a special audio spatial journey called BOSA which throws a spotlight on the journey of a migrant woman. 

The story concentrates on a woman’s journey from the Balkans to Birmingham in search of a new home.

One of Birmingham’s architectural gems, the Edwardian Grade II listed Moseley Road Baths, in Balsall Heath, is reopening the doors of the Gala Pool to the community to showcase a special immersive show.

Birmingham 2022 Festival, with Notnow Collective, presents BOSA (barefoot) at the spectacular baths.

The BOSA project gathered together four Balkan women artists, three commissioned young creatives and many of the local community who are making their home in Birmingham.

The women explored and shared their stories and rituals of moving home and settling into a new community.

The story at the heart of the BOSA performance is about how a person- whether a refugee, a migrant, an asylum seeker or an immigrant – leaves an old home and arrives in a new place.

Whether moving from a village to a sprawling and bustling city, from one neighbourhood to another, or from one country to a completely new one across the continent, people all have experiences of creating new homes as they travel from one place to another.

The BOSA event explores the sensations of being comfortable and safe in a place where people feel ‘at home’.

The performance is utilising the latest immersive spatial audio technology and giving the audience the experience of being present with the various characters in the story.

Notnow Collective have teamed up with Kinicho, who specialise in developing new technologies for spatial audio and bringing to life creative audio experiences in arts and commercial activations.

For BOSA, Kinicho will employ their revolutionary Sonic Reality Engine to provide an immersive experience through headphones that track head movements, taking the listener into the world of the story.

The audience are invited on an immersive audio experience, listening to a story of a woman leaving her home and building a new life in a new place.

The organisers raise the question whether it is ever truly possible to settle, or whether people are constantly comparing things from their current place of existence to their old home.

The special event uses sound coming from a busy open market which will take the audience down memory lane, back to the grandma’s garden where chickens fight and one has to find shade from the intense sun.

This is also a story about caring for others and working selflessly to make others safe and comfortable. The immersive experience also shows how caring for others can actually help to settle those who have come from distant shores.

The performance explores the profound meaning of greeting a neighbour in the morning, of taking off shoes upon reaching home, and the almost scared ritual of settling back with a cup of tea.

Date and Location: Friday 15, Saturday 16 July at the Gala Pool, Moseley Road Baths
Time: 3pm, 4.30pm, 6pm & 7.30pm
The duration of each performance is 40mins