2025
Digital collage and spoken text excerpt from my larger research project on architecture in the Caribbean. Images sourced from Sucking Salt and my own archive.
2023
Digital collage and poetry detailing a spiritual journey, of sorts. Filmed along the NW coast in Jamaica. Sounds by Cole Roberts.
Oil on canvas
40 x 36”
2023
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2022
Looped performance and poem filmed at Boulder Field in Lake Harmony, PA. Sounds by Cole Roberts.
Contact
Alissa Roach (b. Kingston, Jamaica) is a writer and artist often concerned with exploring the idea of home – reminders of home, what it means to build a home, what it means to leave, and what it means for that home to face imminent destruction. She received an MA in Writing from the Royal College of Art in London, and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Her writing has appeared in Oberon Magazine, the Philadelphia Plain Dealer, and sx salon (upcoming).
Philadelphia, PA
BFA Sculpture
2022
Royal College of Art
London, UK
MA Writing
2025
November 2025
“Why Does the Art Museum Need a Mascot?” Philadelphia Plain Dealer
October 2025
Last Updated 04.07.2026
Royal College of Art – Writing MA
2025
At RCA I wrote my final thesis manuscript on vernacular architecture, particularly concrete breeze blocks, as a way to explore post-colonialism in the Caribbean and a personal narrative on home. Primary research brought me to Spanish Town in Jamaica, as well as the autonomous migrant communities Cova da Moura and Segundo Torrão outside Lisbon in Portugal. The resulting work was informed in text by the block itself—a porous aggregate structure which allows ‘breeze’ to pass through.
[Image Gallery..]
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Cosmic House, London
2025
Book made in collaboration with RCA MA Writing student cohort and The Cosmic House in London. Designed by Stinsensqueeze.
[My contributions..]
2024
Conversation with author and radio host Zakia Sewell on her [then upcoming] book Finding Albion and show Dream Time on BBC Radio 6
Page illustration by Alex Merry
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[Listen to Dream Time..]
Philadelphia Museum of Art
2023
Though Nick Cave is best known for his Soundsuits–sculptural forms based on the scale of his body–there is much to be learned about him from his other bodies of work. We invited him to shed light on seven objects he made early in his career, which are part of the museum’s collection and were on view in the gallery installation Ghosts and Fragments in 2023. By focusing our questions on artistic intention and personal histories behind making these works, we were able to gain insight into the entirety of Cave’s artistic process. I was joined in conversation with Cave by my colleagues at the museum Erica Battle and Alison Tufano.
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