Roberta Joy Rich is a multi-disciplinary 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. Roberta often draws upon her lived experiences as a diaspora Southern African kaapse woman based in Narrm. With a focus on communal knowledge systems, alterity, imperialism and socio-political histories, her projects explore resilience, power, memory, belonging and truth-telling. Her practice utilises text, video, installation, photo and print media, archives, satire and storytelling as platforms to interrogate constructs of race, gender, history and notions of authenticity. Roberta aims

to deconstruct colonial modalities and Western singularity through her work, while proposing empowering sites of

self-determination.

 

Roberta has exhibited widely across so-called Australia and South Africa. Recent exhibitions include 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), Footscray Community Arts (2022). Roberta is based

on Wurundjeri Woiwurrung and Boonwurrung Country of the Kulin Nation (inner west Melbourne, south-eastern Australia).

 

"I acknowledge that my creative practice and experiences take place on the lands of the Wathaurong, Wurundjeri and Bunurong peoples. I recognise Wathaurong, Wurundjeri and Bunurong peoples as the custodians of the lands, waterways and skies, that I was raised upon and continue to live, work and benefit from. I pay my respects to their Elders, ancestors and their families, acknowledging their deep, ongoing spiritual connection to Country. I come with an intention to learn, share and create, and deepen my understanding of ancestral pathways as a diasporic being.

 

I recognise that sovereignty was never ceded, and that Wathaurong, Wurundjeri and Bunurong peoples are the original custodians of the lands I traverse. I wish to extend this acknowledgment and pay my respects to peer African and Indigenous peoples across the globe viewing this website."