Rita Keegan OBE: Fabric of Time

Join artist Rita Keegan OBE to discuss her long-standing creative relationship with Brixton, from her experiences co-founding the Brixton Art Gallery in the early 1980s to a recent commission entitled 'Fabric of Time' for TFL, inspired by seat fabrics on the London Underground and Keegan's expansive photographic archive. 

Rita Keegan OBE (b. 1949, Bronx, New York) moved to the UK in 1980, settling in London, where she co-founded the Brixton Art Gallery and became an important figure in the Black Arts Movement. Rita works across print, photography, film, sound, textiles and installation. Her work considers the representation of Black communities historically and acts of self-fashioning in relation to the experience of Black women, often through self-portraiture. In 1984 Rita co-founded Community CopyArt, and in 1985 she established the Women Artists of Colour Index, to catalogue, document and remember the work of Black women artists. 

Rita's work is held in the Tate and Government Art Collection. In 2024, she established the Rita Keegan Foundation to celebrate and preserve the legacy of her collections through exhibitions, educational programmes, and by supporting artists and cultural workers to develop their own archives. 

Rita discusses her work and life as a Black artist.