OFFICIAL
Nigerian-American artist Mimi Ọnụọha's work questions and exposes the contradictory logics of technological progress. Through print, code, data, video, installation, and archival media, Ọnụọha offers new orientations for making sense of the seeming absences that define systems of labor, ecology and relations.
Ọnụọha's recent solo exhibitions include bitforms gallery (USA) and Forest City Gallery (Canada). Her work has been featured at the Whitney Museum of Art (USA), the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (AUS), Mao Jihong Arts Foundation (China), La Gaitê Lyrique (France), Transmediale Festival (Germany), The Photographers Gallery (UK), and NEON (Greece) among others. Her public art engagements have been supported by Akademie der Kunst (Germany), the Royal College of Art (UK), the Rockefeller Foundation (USA), and Princeton University (USA).
Ọnụọha is a Creative Capital and Fulbright-National Geographic grantee. She is also the Co-Founder of A People's Guide To Tech, an artist-led organization that makes educational guides and workshops about emerging technology.
UNOFFICIAL
I am an eternal hybrid, drawn always to in-between spaces.
I am fascinated by how metrified, industrialized societies require the fluid messiness of people to be secured, tagged, categorized, and made legible. Anything that doesn't fit is at risk of being forgotten.
My practice begins with these forgotten bits, which are always real, even when they are intangible. In my practice, I try to make these absences material. Only when we can point to them can we begin to change them.
I aim to trouble the assumptions baked into the beliefs and technologies that mediate our existences.
SHORT ARTIST STATEMENT
What is missing is still there. This is where my work begins.
I use the materials of the information age to make sense of the contradictions inherent within modernity. Globalized, quantified societies require the fluid messiness of people to be made into legible forms of data. Anything that doesn't fit is at risk of being forgotten. My practice starts with these forgotten bits, which are always real, even when they are intangible. Every piece I make is a foray into sites that resist being collected and counted, and for this exact reason, reveal the logics of the systems that they undo.