Roberta Joy Rich

Roberta Joy Rich is a transdisciplinary artist interested in critical fabulation and anarchiving as processes for unearthing silenced and emergent narratives, and in doing so, the possibilities they conjure for Black empowerment. With a focus on communal knowledge systems, alterity, Black fugitivity and socio-political histories, her projects explore resilience, power, memory, belonging and truth-telling, often drawing upon her lived experiences as a diaspora kaapse Southern African woman. Her practice utilises text, video, installation, photo, print, archives, satire and storytelling as platforms to interrogate constructs of race, gender, history and notions of authenticity. Roberta aims to deconstruct colonial modalities through her work, while proposing collective sites of self-determination.

Roberta has exhibited in South Africa and settler nation Australia exploring their colonial, historical and creative entanglements. Recent exhibitions include M/other Land; Art Gallery of Ballarat (2026), in every room; Campbelltown Arts Centre (2025), Lying Inside; Latrobe Art Institute Biannual Façade Commission (2024) and The Purple Shall Govern; Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2023) and Footscray Community Arts in partnership with ACCA for their big picture programme 'Who's Afraid of Public Space?' (2022).