Rita Keegan

Rita Keegan (b.1949, Bronx, New York) is an artist and archivist living in London. Her practice combines digital animation, textiles, painting and copy art, often grappling with the elusive and enduring powers of memory, drawing on her extensive family archive: a photographic record of a Black middle-class Canadian family from the 1880s to the present day.

Keegan co-founded the Brixton Art Gallery in 1982, established the Women of Colour Index (WOCI) in 1987, and was Director of the African and Asian Visual Arts Archive (AAVAA) until 1994. For many years, she was a lecturer in multimedia arts at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her artwork is held in the Tate Collection and has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Royal Academy, Iniva and the British Museum, London; Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol; the Studio Museum in Harlem and Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York. Keegan’s contributions to archival practice were explored by X Marks the Spot in the publication Human Endeavour: a creative finding aid for the Women of Colour Index. She has been profiled and reviewed in Artforum, Hyperallergic, Luncheon, Third Text and the Observer, amongst others.

Courtesy of Plinth