Keisha Scarville

Keisha Scarville was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Guyanese parents who immigrated to the United States in the 1960s. Scarville is a photographer and mixed-media artist whose practice combines photography, collage, textiles, and archival materials to examine migration, memory, absence, family history, and belonging. Scarville is based in Brooklyn and is also a faculty member at Parsons School of Design and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University.

Scarville's work includes Mama's Clothes, which incorporates garments belonging to her late mother, and Passports, an ongoing series developed from her father's childhood passport photograph from Guyana. Her first book, lick of tongue, rub of finger, on soft wound, was published by MACK in 2023 and brings together photography, archival imagery, collage, personal texts, and film stills to explore Black diasporic histories and questions of identity and belonging.

In 2026, Scarville received the Brooklyn Museum's UOVO Prize, which recognizes emerging Brooklyn-based artists. Her resulting installation, Where Salt Meets Black Water, draws on family photographs, her mother's garments, and her Caribbean heritage to consider migration, memory, loss, healing, and shared belonging.

Scarville has also publicly reflected on seeking queer spaces created by and for communities of color. This self-described connection to queer community provides context for her inclusion in the BQW archive.