The First Stuart Hall Library Animateur Roshini Kempadoo

As Animateur for the Stuart Hall Library, Roshini Kempadoo aims to expand the use and development of the Library and stimulate research for publishing and creating work.

Building on the success of the Stuart Hall Reading Group and other activities, she plans to develop new initiatives to encourage and empower other Artists and Researchers. She will also develop ideas for future programmes and collaborations with other collections, and involve Artists and Curators responses.

About Roshini Kempadoo

Roshini Kempadoo is a London based photographer, Media Artist and Academic. Born in England, her Guyanese parents migrated to the UK during the 1950s. Roshini travelled between the Caribbean and England, spending her formative years in the Caribbean. On her return, she studied with photographers Nick Hedges, Victor Burgin and Maggie Murray, and cultural theorists Deck Hebdige and Francoise Verges. She has been active in documenting Caribbean communicties, events, rights issues, and individuals in the UK and the Caribbean. She was instrumental in setting up Autograph, the Association of Black Photographers in the last 1980s, and worked as a documentary photographer for Format Picture Agency (1983 – 2003), the UK’s only women’s agency.

Recent shows include: 28 Days: Reimagining Black History Month, (2012) Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto; Staging Citizenship: Cultural Rights in the Americas (2009) 7th Encuentro, Museo de Artes, National University of Colombia, Bogota; Liminal: A question of position (2009) Rivington Place, London; Art & Emancipation In Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario And His Worlds, (2007) Yale Center for British Art, USA; and the retrospective exhibition Roshini Kempadoo work: 1990-2004, (2004) Pitzhanger Manor and Gallery, London.

Roshini is also a Reader in Media Practice at the School of Arts and Digital Industries, University of East London. Recent articles and chapters include “Interpolating screen bytes: Critical commentary in multimedia artworks” for the Journal of Media Practice 11(1):59-80 (2010) and for Alan Grossman’s and Aine O’Brien’s (eds.) 2007 Projecting Migration: Transcultural Documentary Practice.