DESIblitz Truck Art Bus

Professional truck painter Haider Ali flies into Birmingham for two weeks to transform a nine seater minibus into one of the elaborately decorated Punjabi ‘Truck Art’ buses, typical of India and Pakistan. Commissioned by DESIblitz, the bus will serve as a mobile art space for communities at multiple sites across the city. Watch Haider Ali paint and learn more about his techniques each day from 11am-5pm, directly in front of Ikon.

Truck Art Bus is supported by ‘Everything to Everybody’ (E2E), a National Lottery Heritage funded collaboration between Birmingham City Council and the University of Birmingham which is unlocking and celebrating Birmingham’s Shakespeare Memorial Library. On October 12th the bus will be touring the city, sharing South Asian material from the collection and celebrating the links between Shakespeare and Bollywood. Desiblitz’s co-curated exhibition Influence of Shakespeare on Bollywood is also free to attend in the Shakespeare Memorial Room (Library of Birmingham, 9th Floor) from 12th August 2022.

With thanks to Brindleyplace.

About the artist

Haider Ali is a Pakistani painter best known for his work as a truck artist. Ali received rigorous training in truck art as a child apprentice, being trained from the age of eight by his father Muhammad Sardar, also a truck artist, who insisted on an ability to draw straight vertical and horizontal lines. By age 16 he had painted his first truck under master supervision.  Since then Ali has painted murals, structures, benches, and trucks in his distinctive style. He first gained international attention in 2002 when he worked on the first authentic Pakistani truck in North America for the Smithsonian and has gone on to exhibit at museums and institutions globally.