She was a central figure in the cultural movement in the 1980s. “Rita Keegan’s first solo exhibition in more than fifteen years features artworks that reflect the intersection of new media experimentation, feminist practice and the British Black Arts Movement of the 1980s.”

In the 1980s, Keegan, who helped to establish the Brixton Art Gallery, curated the first exhibition by the Black Women Artists collective. The historically significant show featured the work of the Lesbian & Gay Artists Group and “was the first British gallery to nationally put on exhibitions where artists were selected on the basis of being queer.” Keegan made it her personal mission to make sure that marginalized artists were not “written out of history,” by documenting their work through collecting and preserving newsletters, leaflets, photographs and exhibition literature from the British Black arts scene. In Keegan’s own word, “It [didn’t] matter how fabulous the show – if you didn’t have the ephemera, it was hard to say that you existed…if you don’t have those pieces of paper.”

Keegan’s contemporaries such as Sonia Boyce, Eddie Chambers, and Denzil Forrester, who mobilized in response to their disenfranchisement from the mainstream art world, might concur with Keegan’s efforts. Keegan’s documentation from the British Black Arts movement, dubbed the “Rita Keegan Project was well received at the South London Gallery in 2021.

Keegan’s solo exhibition entitled, "Somewhere Between There and Here," is inspired by her artist uncle, a poet. She admits that she didn’t know him very well. What was important to Keegan, however was to include him in the exhibition so he could “become part of the canon of the art world.” A highly anticipated image in the show, Keegan’s Social Fabric, is “constructed from A4 patchworks donated by a global network of friends and family.” Just as Keegan has been as diligent about preserving the history of her own family, she is committed to documenting the British Black Arts movement. Her personal archive is extensive—containing family photographs and other documentation of Keegan’s Black middle-class Canadian family.

Another key aspect of Keegan’s work is highlighting the “politics of dress, adornment, and Black female identity.” Keegan recalls that growing up, the images that she was presented with in school, didn’t resonate with how she experienced the world and she has set out to raise the art community’s consciousness level regarding the need for more inclusivity.

An innovative and forward leaning curator and phenomenal artist, “Keegan co-founded CopyArt, a resource and education centre for community groups and artists working with computers, scanners and photocopiers. Funded by a grant from Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Council (GLC). The Collective also held workshops for activist and community groups and helped to produce print materials for events such as the 1986 anti-apartheid demonstration. GLC is now defunct; it was abolished by Margaret Thatcher. Not before, it facilitated the allocation Black arts sector grants from the “ethnic arts subcommittee.”

Keegan, who is still considered by some as being “ on the fringes of the contemporary art world,” has garnered institutional recognition after being ignored for decades. Her legacy and transformative work in the arts, however, is at dead center.