Oram Award winner Poulomi Desai is a multidisciplinary artist and curator. She is self-taught and for over 30 years, has been involved in performance, live art, sound and photography installations interrogating the politics of identity, listening and perception, inspired by her activist and DIY post punk background. She subverts broken sitars into new electronic instruments for improvised performance, melding circuit bent toys, modified cassette decks, optikinetic instruments, kitchen knives, redundant electronics, axes and massage tools. She works with collage, video, field recordings, VLF radio noise, petri dish bacterial photography and ideas of ‘electromagnetic black noise’, embracing chance, loss of control and questioning 'authenticity'.

The Oram Awards is a platform for innovation in sound, music, and related technologies. With the support of lead partners The Radiophonic Institute, PRS Foundation and the British Council, the aim of the awards is to elevate the work and voices of Women, Trans and Non-Binary music creators in electronic music.

Named after Daphne Oram, one of the founding members of the original BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the awards aim to build on her legacy. Along with other women in the workshop, Oram played a vital role in establishing women at the forefront of innovation in newly-emerging audio technologies not only in the UK but around the world.