(selected by Mark Sealy)
Virtual Exiles: frontlines/backyards (3), 2000
Roshini Kempadoo is an internationally acclaimed photographic and digital artist whose work has placed her at the centre of the story of black artists engagement with personal and cultural identity. Kempadoo's digital artworks creatively engage with ways in which historical material can be reworked and recontextualised, to explore the relationship between physical landscapes, spaces and sites and those who may have used, owned and occupied it. Her particular interest lies in the exploration of the period from 1838-1948 and material relating to Trinidad, then a British colonial state.
Kempadoo was born in the UK and is of Indian Caribbean descent. She spent ten years in the Caribbean - a period which became a highly formative time for her. Her photographic, digital and web based work explores and charts colonial history, stories and locations and powerfully draws out the connections between the past and the present.
'Her work is very significant because it highlights the cultural mix of the Caribbean often lost in translation to the UK. Her work is trying to restore the complexities of Caribbean history through sometimes an autobiographical investigation. What is very provocative about her work is that it offers us a complex set of relationships that we as audience not only enjoy unpicking because it is full of diffuse humour but also because it recognises complex relationships between the present and the colonial period of British expansion'. Sunil Gupta, OVA London 2004
Kempadoo has exhibited nationally and internationally over the past 14 years. Her solo retrospective show Roshini Kempadoo work: 1990 2004 recently toured venues across England. This major exhibition gave a comprehensive overview of the development and depth of her exceptional contribution.
Group shows include A Place Called Home, South Africa Art Gallery (SANG), Cape Town; The 90s: A Family of Man?, Forum d'art Contemporain, Luxembourg; Translocations, The Photographers Gallery, London; Techno Seduction, Cooper Union Art Gallery, New York. Publications include Roshini Kempadoo Work: 1990 2004 by OVA, 2004 and Roshini Kempadoo, Autograph portfolio, 1997.
Kempadoo has presented work to international lectures and events including: Black Diaspora Artists, Past and Present Raphael Samuel History Centre event, Conway Hall, London; Visual Culture Colloquium, Department of History of Art, Cornell University, USA; Visual Culture, DE BALIE, Amsterdam.
She is Senior Lecturer at University of East London holds degrees in Visual Communication and Photographic Studies and is currently undertaking an Mphil at Goldsmiths College, London.
(December 2005)
Further information
Review: Roshini Kempadoo Retrospective by Camelia GuptaRoshini Kempadoo works from a documentary tradition but intervenes to dismember and complicate narratives of race, colonialism and identity. She is concerned with physical landscapes and those who... read on
Endless Prospects'Endless Prospects', 2004 considers the way in which architectural spaces and landscapes were constructed, engineered and occupied, from the vantage points, horizons and vistas for dreams and... read on
Ghosting'Ghosting', commissioned for Leicester City Art Gallery, brings to life stories that trace the roots of the different Caribbean people who came to live in Trinidad. Spoken word and animated... read on
Virtual ExilesThe digital image and interactive website-exhibition 'Virtual Exiles' explores the experiences of people who have left their country of origin and are now at 'home' in another. It is about... read on
