Photographer - Writer
Roshad Van Der Pool
global community
Caribbean - Jamaican
exhibit
Photography & Writing
A Bit About Me…
Roshad van der Pool is a film photographer, writer, and contemporary archivist whose work explores preservation through the creative expression of photography. Born in East London with mixed Caribbean heritage, his artistic journey began in August 2021 when, at the age of 24, he travelled to Jamaica to document his late grandfather’s funeral, his family, and the layered vibrancy of Jamaican life.
This marked the genesis of a practice rooted at the intersection of cultural documentation, personal storytelling, and introspective narrative.
With a background in computer science and business analytics, Roshad initially turned to photography as a counterbalance to a corporate trajectory. What began as a personal outlet evolved into a deliberate creative pursuit—one shaped by experimentation, instinct, and observation.
His work resists categorization, moving fluidly between the personal and the collective, documenting everyday musings, cultural nuances, other creative practitioners, and experimental projects with an archival lens.
Writing is integral to Roshad’s practice, existing in tandem with his photography as the other half of his creative expression. Whether through poetry, narrative prose, or the simple act of naming, text is a means of deepening context, evoking emotion, and bridging the gap between artist and audience. Through written format, he translates the intangible aspects of memory and experience into something graspable, transforming his work into an open conversation rather than a closed statement.
My inspiration comes from…
Photography resonates with me on a spiritual and technical level. In practice, film photography specifically is slow, methodical, unstable, and versatile. It felt like the perfect balance I was looking for in a creative expression to my projected corporate lifestyle that allowed me to learn something new at my own pace. In a deeper sense, I am inspired by what exists and what must be remembered in the now, and the practitioners of archiving.
My role in this life as an expressionist is to bear witness; to archive and comprehend the way people find patterns and meaning and how they communicate their understanding through imagery and performance in the present so it may serve as a resource for the future.
I am inspired by and attempt to preserve both fleeting personal moments and the evolving landscape of contemporary art and culture, particularly within emerging creative spaces.
By documenting the careers of artists in their formative years and the vibrancy of underground scenes, I aim to contribute to a living record of artistic movements that might otherwise go unnoticed.
The Story…
(m)Othersland, the first part of a trilogy on synonyms for home, is a meditation on the concept “a home away from home”— what it means to belong to a somewhere that is both inherited and distant, a place woven into identity yet questioned in its claim.
Through photography and writing, this personal archive of Jamaica exists as an exploration of diasporic connection, cultural inheritance, and the significance of memory and grief in shaping identity.
For WE ARE ONE, the chosen excerpts from m(Othersland) explores the everyday rhythms of the house and neighbourhood in Portland, Jamaica my mother was raised in before she came to the UK. It is a study of connection and presents a reflective nostalgia that recognises both the beauty and the impermanence of what remains from those considered denizens, and the parallel narratives that exist for those who are not.
Written for the youngest in the family and for those raised far from these landscapes, this section serves as a reminder of continuity—a way of affirming that home is something that must be actively remembered.
This reflection is deepened in (m)Othersland’s three-part interlude Hairday that moves through poetry and prose to explore the ritual of washing, combing, twisting, and caring for hair as a metaphor for lineage, memory, and the ways we remain bound to our origins.
Through water and hands, through the motion of twisting strands, history is preserved in the body itself. The piece captures how cultural memory endures beyond borders, existing in the rituals carried forward across time and space.
A Hidden Hero to Highlight…
A man named Lindsay Cupidore, colloquially referred to as Uncle Junior, that has mentored men and women navigating the corporate life
(I couldn’t think of one as my community has changed pretty drastically in the last couple years, but this person is the closest to one that would work if it is a requirement).
