Rosa-Johan Uddoh is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist and author, working towards maximum self-esteem. She is inspired by Black feminist practice and writing.
Through performance art, film, writing and multi-media installation, she explores places, objects and characters in British popular culture, and their effects on Black self-formation. This has included experimental text on Meghan Markle, Moira Stuart, Serena & Venus Williams, Una Marson & the Black Madonna of Tindari. She is interested in how different types of Black performance are encouraged at different times, the limits and consequences of ‘representation’ and how different scripts might prompt us toward freedom.
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In her work, Rosa appropriates popular media formats & materials to engage audiences often excluded from Art. She collaborates with other artists, children, activists, patients, older people, to share knowledge and achieve community and self-esteem building during the making process itself. Through humour and parody, she encourages non-passive engagement – laughter, shouting-at-the-screen, audience participation. Engaging nostalgia and history as it exists in the popular imagination (as she calls it – ‘ye olde’), she taps into a place that’s playful, deeply-felt and political.
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Solo exhibitions include: ‘Pantomime, Performance and Black feminism’, Amant (New York, 2025); ‘NATIVITY’ (Women’s Art Collection, Cambridge, 2023); 'Una's Voice', The Bower, 'Pink Tongue Brown Cheek', Iniva (both London, 2022); ‘Practice Makes Perfect’, Focal Point Gallery & touring to Bluecoat (Southend-on-sea & Liverpool, 2021); ‘”She is still alive!”’, Destiny’s (Oslo, 2020); ‘Studies for Impartiality’, Jupiter Woods and ‘Sphinx at the Crystal Palace’, Black Tower Projects (both London, 2019). She has also made large-scale public art commissions including ‘Ye Olde Group Chat’ (Chapter Arts 2023) and on a mental health ward at Hellesdon Hospital, Norwich with Hospital Rooms in 2024. Her films have been screened at Goldsmiths CCA’s Feminist Library, at East London Cable’s ‘TV Dinners’ at Tate Modern, 2019 and her Jarman-nominated film 'Black Poirot: remastered', had its premiere screening at Tate Modern in 2021 selected by Lubaina Himid as part of her solo show public programme. She's given artist talks at several arts institutions including at the Royal Academy as part of Marina Abramovic’s retrospective. ​
Rosa was shortlisted for the Jarman Award 2022 for her film making practice. She was a finalist for Arts Foundation Futures Awards 2021, the Liverpool Biennial and John Moores University Fellow 2018-2019, the Stuart Hall Library Resident for 2020 and a Sarabande: Lee Alexander Mc Queen Scholar 2016-19. Her work has been profiled in international publications including Art Monthly, The New York Times and Nordic Art Review. She is a Senior Lecturer in Performance at Central Saint Martins.
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Rosa's first book 'Practice Makes Perfect', co-published with Book Works and Focal Point Gallery was published in July 2022 and is available here.​
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Links to selected press
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Profile on Rosa in Art Monthly.
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Guardian article on Jarman Award Shortlist
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Guardian Article, 'From Poirot to Poppers! Jarman Award Celebrates Risk Taking Film-Makers'
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Shortlist for Arts Foundation Award
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Stuart Hall Library Resident 2020
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Liverpool Biennial x Liverpool John Moores Fellowship announcement
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