Moseley Road Baths: Living Room

Balsall Heath’s Living Room at Moseley Road Baths (2023)

Transforming the iconic Gala Pool space at Moseley Road Baths into a warm and accessible “living room”, an intergenerational space dressed with artworks, rugs, materials and soft furnishings, creating a space with and for local residents where people can relax, engage and converse.

Dressing and furniture was sourced locally and sustainably by Friction Arts, alongside artworks referencing the past, present and future of the gala pool. A series of playful installations curated by artist Tim Mills reimagined the front of the building to show the mischievous and welcoming spirit of the Living Room; while a step-free entrance was created at the back of the building via Edward Road, entering through a courtyard transformed into a community garden including a free play ‘mud kitchen’ installation by The Parakeet, growing sections filled with edible plants, herbs and flowers, and growing activity and grafting workshops delivered by Fruit and Nut Village.

The ramp and the pool was dressed in natural fabrics, locally sourced or donated furniture and rugs, as well flower arrangements by the resident floristry group and images of local residents, participants in Moseley Road Baths’ community programmes and historic images of the building and the area.

On arrival, an MRB volunteer welcomed the visitor to the space, told them the day’s programme of activities and invited them to make themselves at home – take their shoes off if they’d like and put them in the provided shoe racks; help themselves to a drink from our drinks cabinet; take one of our wireless headsets to listen to hyperlocal radio stations.

The Living Room also hosted installation by Nilupa Yasmin and curated by Ort Gallery, ‘Hamara Ghar / Amar Ghor’ which translates to ‘Our Home’ in Hindi/Urdu/Bangla. Hamara Ghar is inspired by and pays tribute to the intercultural prints and patterns of Balsall Heath through hung woven artwork.

Elsewhere within the Living Room was an oversized television installation created by Flatpack Festival, a giant old-school analogue TV, with audio via wireless headphones. The channel-changer was a manual, tactile and clunking device with numbered buttons, and every day we showed ‘BHTV’ programming - imagining what a cable access channel for Balsall Heath might look like. Interspersed with lo-fi animated idents, the three main channels showed archive films about Balsall Heath, a historic short documentary about the baths, and family short films from around the world. Visitors will be able to browse a ‘Radio Times’ style menu and switch channels. Outside of these times we invited individuals and community groups to choose what we show on screen, to show their own films or organise their own film nights.

Sharonjit Kaur co-designed signage with baths regulars throughout the building to welcome and guide people into and through the space. Events throughout the three months encouraged use as an inclusive intergenerational space – including children’s gardening and adventure workshops, queer-positive creative performance events and periods where the baths is a protected safe space for marginalised or vulnerable groups. Every Thursday, the Living Room was a dedicated women-only space throughout the day.

We worked with Sense to ensure that the space was as accessible and reactive to support needs as possible. This was an in-flight evolving process, and the space was designed to be able to change through the three months as visitors decided how to use it. Questionnaires in the space as well as creative provocations ensured monitoring of visitors and encourage evaluative responses and feedback to the work.

Partners included: