Virtual Exiles

‘Virtual Exiles becomes a collective way of telling stories, of digitally contributing our own version of what it means to step between two spaces at once. Two cultures, two senses of belonging, two countries we are familiar with. To visually describe this difference becomes an important inscription to everyday encounters and our writing of the past ......’ 

David Dabydeen Jan 2000. Author, poet, and lecturer in Caribbean Studies.

Roshini Kempadoo’s digital images and Internet site Virtual Exiles (2000) explored the experiences of individuals who have left their country of origin and who are now at ‘home’ in another. The reason and experience of having left a homeland always varies, but what doesn’t is the relation to the host country - those having migrated are nearly always considered to be an ‘outsiders’ or ‘foreigners’. The work was created by Kempadoo while investigating her own status as refugee/exile/expatriate/emigre in relation to her country of birth England and her country of origin and upbringing, Guyana. 

The exhibition of prints are digitally manipulated images produced using a combination of Kempadoo’s contemporary photography, specific historical collections from the Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford), the Royal Anthropological Institute (London) and the Museum voor Volkenkunde (Rotterdam) and material drawn from private and official archives in Guyana. 

Virtual Exiles was a partnership between Street Level Photoworks, Watermans Arts Centre, ARTEC, Impressions and Lighthouse Media Centre, Napier University (PFTV) and New Media Scotland. It has been additionally funded by the Arts Council of England’s New Media projects fund and Scottish Arts Council National Lottery Fund.