Matt Keegan on Language, Family Archives, and Pedagogical Disruption

Matt Keegan (b. 1976, Manhasset) works across sculpture, photography, video, and publishing to investigate language as a cultural device that shapes reality and organizes thought. Central to his practice is the use of personal archives and family experience—not as biography but as a lens to interpret cultural and social phenomena. In his recent exhibition "Realia" at Magenta Plains, Keegan presented works incorporating ESL flashcards made by his mother from magazines and advertisements of the 1990s and 2000s. These flashcards become vehicles of memory and cultural capital, questioning how knowledge is produced, transmitted, and legitimized. Keegan's video and installation projects, such as "what was & what is" (2019) and "Generation" (2016), involve his parents and family as active interlocutors, exploring inherited knowledge, place, memory, and authorship. His editorial practice includes North Drive Press (2004–2010), == (Equals), and the books AMERICAMERICA (1986–2008) and 1996, which function as oral history containers mapping specific periods of American cultural and political evolution. Keegan is currently working on a new book focusing on 2008–2012, to be published in dialogue with 2028–2032.