Category Archives: Exhibition

23 October 2025 18:30 ~ Rita Keegan OBE: Fabric of Time – Lambeth Black History Month

@ Brixton Library, Brixton Oval London SW2 1JQ

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.

Free but please register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rita-keegan-obe-fabric-of-time-tickets-1616824849649

October 10, 2025

23 October 2025 18:30 ~ Rita Keegan OBE: Fabric of Time – Lambeth Black History Month

@ Brixton Library, Brixton Oval London SW2 1JQ

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.

Free but please register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rita-keegan-obe-fabric-of-time-tickets-1616824849649

October 10, 2025

9 August 2022 18:00 ~ Celebrating South African Women’s Day – The Liliesleaf Trust UK – London

Join us for an evening of film, exhibitions and discussion inspired by the themes of South African Women’s Day

To mark South African Women’s Day 2022, The Liliesleaf Trust UK, joined by artist Nefateri, are screening the ground-breaking film “Murder in Paris”, an investigative documentary that traces the motives for the assassination of Anti-Apartheid activist Dulcie September.

Our commissioned artist, Nefateri Asantewa, will be exhibiting and talking about her work “South African Flag“, which gives reference to the over 20 000 women who took part in the 1956 Women’s March to Pretoria, South Africa, celebrating their resilience and contribution to the struggle against apartheid and provokes thinking about ongoing inequalities.

During the evening attendees will also be able to view the exhibition, Pride Belongs to the People: Images of Soweto Pride on display at Newington Green Meeting House, held as part of The Culthouse’s Pop Up Shop supported by The Leverhulme Trust and the School of Social Sciences at the University of Westminster.

The audience will be invited to participate in a conversation on the role and impact of women in the fight against apartheid. Together, we will explore the stories, histories and voices of former generations to inspire future ones.

  • Free (*)
  • 6-8 pm
  • Newington Green Meeting House, 39A Newington Green, N16 9PR
  • Nearest station : Canonbury overground station
  • Local buses from Finsbury Park Station

Click here to visit the Murder In Paris official website.

The Organisers

The Liliesleaf Trust UK is a registered charity, established in 2018, dedicated to engagement with the heritage and values of the Southern African liberation struggle, international solidarity with the cause and in particular the activities of South(ern) Africans exiled in the UK, the British Anti-Apartheid movement (AAM) and the wider movement against apartheid (MAA) and, most importantly, the contemporary relevance of these narratives.

Drawing from this world-changing history, we promote solidarity, social justice, equality, human rights, reconciliation, and anti-racism to encourage positive action for diverse contemporary communities through arts, cultural and educational programming. We facilitate engaging with the struggle’s heritage to support intergenerational community cohesion, skills development and aspiration to underpin positive social transformation.

We are working to redevelop 28 Penton Street, Islington, the African National Congress-in-exile’s former UK headquarters into the Anti-Apartheid Legacy: Centre of Memory and Learning (CML). The CML will become the first permanent UK venue to make accessible the heritage of the MAA, channelling the legacy of one of the most influential, Black-led social justice movements of the 20th Century and solidarity with the cause.

(*) Register online at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/celebrating-south-african-womens-day-tickets-390497798427

August 4, 2022

15 October 2021 10:00 ~ Images of Liberation: Sally Fraser’s photography of women’s protest – Photo Oxford Festival – Oxford – until 15 November 2021

  • 15 October – 15 November 2021, Open daily 10am – 4pm
  • Cohen Quad, Exeter College, Oxford OX1 2HG

Meet the curators and some participants in the 1970 Women’s Liberation Conference on Friday 15 October, 2-4pm

Striking images from photographer-on-the-ground Sally Fraser capture the fiery beginnings of second wave feminism in Britain. On show as part of Photo Oxford, ‘Images of Liberation’ reveals a hitherto unseen portrait of the first Women’s Liberation Conference and landmark equal rights demonstration that followed. Exhibited at Cohen Quad, part of Exeter (formerly Ruskin) College – the site of this groundbreaking historical moment – the photographs return to the place they were taken, over 50 years ago.

28 October: Online discussion event – details on Festival Events page soon. https://www.photooxford.org/whats-on/events

Never before-seen images capture the fiery beginnings of the UK women’s liberation movement in a new exhibition of work by activist photographer Sally Fraser.

On a snowy International Women’s Day in 1971, 4,000 people marched through central London. Inspired by the founding Women’s Liberation Conference held in Oxford the previous year, this was the first-ever national demonstration for equal rights and pay for women.

The early history of this movement is celebrated in a fascinating exhibition of photographs by Sally Fraser, who both documented and participated in the protests. Images of Liberation: Sally Fraser’s photography of women’s protest runs as part of Photo Oxford 2021. It will be shown at the site of Ruskin (now Exeter) College, where the founding conference took place in February 1970.

Sally Fraser’s images capture the genesis of second wave feminism in Britain, at a landmark conference in Oxford and on the capital’s streets, a half-century ago. The conference attendees include, among others, leading feminist thinkers and activists Sally Alexander, Sue Crockford, Anna Davin, Annie Freud, Selma James, Juliet Mitchell, Sheila Rowbotham, Michelene Wandor and Audrey Wise, later MP for Coventry South West. The conference creche, run by fathers, shows a youthful Stuart Hall holding a baby. Busts of ‘great men’ in the Oxford Union are humorously covered by scarves, paper bags and banana skins. This subversive creativity is further seen on the Women’s March, where women are dressed for a satirical beauty pageant, and a crucified shop dummy is held aloft, draped with articles of women’s oppression.

The exhibition provides an invaluable record of a key moment in 20th century British radical social history, the launch pad of what Sheila Rowbotham envisaged as ‘an entirely new kind of politics’.

For full details scroll down https://www.photooxford.org/whats-on/exhibitions

 

October 13, 2021

How We Live Now: Reimagining Spaces with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative – Barbican – London – until 23 December 2021

  • Barbican Level G & online
  • Admission to the installation is free and you don’t need to book in advance.
  • Upon arrival we ask that all visitors check in using the NHS Test and Trace app or our hosts can help by taking details manually.
  • There is limited capacity so you may have wait a short while before entering.

A multi-layered project comprising an installation, publication and events programme exploring a series of important questions about our public spaces and designed environments.

The project considers who our buildings and shared spaces are designed for, who is excluded from our designed environment, and what effect this has on the communities who live there?

A jumping off point for these questions is an unseen archive of work by the radical 1980s feminist architecture co-operative Matrix. The installation will feature rare films, drawings, photos and architectural models from the Matrix archive, presenting their use of radical methods across a range of projects, past and present.

We also introduce archival and contemporary approaches to design that aim to empower groups often excluded in the design of buildings, including Black and Asian women’s organisations, community and childcare groups and lesbian and gay housing co-operatives, to explore more inclusive ways of designing, building and occupying spaces.

https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2021/event/how-we-live-now

Background

Throughout 2021, the Barbican’s Level G programme will present How We Live Now: Reimagining Spaces with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, a multi-layered project comprising an installation, publication and events programme. Using the previously unseen archive of the Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative as a jumping-off point, the project will explore a series of important social questions: who are our buildings and shared spaces designed for? Who is excluded from our designed environment, and what effect does this have on the communities who live there?

Co-curated by Matrix founding member Jos Boys, How We Live Now introduces archival and contemporary approaches to design that aim to empower voices and groups often excluded in the design of buildings, including Black and Asian women’s organisations, community and childcare groups and lesbian and gay housing co-operatives, to propose and explore more inclusive ways of designing, building and occupying spaces. With the Covid-19 pandemic only sharpening the existing inequalities within our cities and homes, such as a lack of access to safe, affordable housing, community facilities and green spaces, the question Matrix began to explore of how we can reimagine these spaces in more equitable ways, feels increasingly urgent.

Active in London from 1981-1994, Matrix was a women’s co-operative with a non-hierarchical structure. The collective worked solely on state-funded, social building projects including women’s and refuges centres, facilities for women and children, construction training workshops and lesbian and gay housing projects. They also provided publicly funded architectural advice; helped establish educational programmes to increase access for women into architecture and building; as well as giving talks and writing about how space and gender are related through a variety of events and publications.

The Barbican believes in creating space for people and ideas to connect through its international arts programme, community events and learning activity. To keep its programme accessible to everyone, and to keep investing in the artists it works with, the Barbican needs to raise more than 60% of its income through ticket sales, commercial activities and fundraising every year. Donations can be made here: barbican.org.uk/donate

Part of a longer press release at https://www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/press-room/how-we-live-now-reimagining-spaces-with-matrix-feminist-design-co-operative

 

September 27, 2021