Mendi + Keith Obadike

Biography

The interdisciplinary art practice of new media artists Mendi + Keith Obadike includes video and sound art, music CDs and text-based Internet projects. Exploring the implications of social and cultural systems in relation to blackness and identity, they have investigated sex toys, the commodification of race, and the visualization of untold stories as disappearing hypertext.

Mendi Obadike was born in Palo Alto, California in 1973 and graduated in English from Spelman College. She is currently studying Literature at Duke University and teaching at Wesleyan University. Keith Obadike was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1973 and graduated in Fine Art from North Carolina Central University. He is currently studying Sound Design at Yale University. Their work has been shown at the Studio Museum, New York; MIT/List Visual Art Center, Boston and the International Center of Photography, New York, among other venues. Their public projects include the African Diaspora Film Series at the Center for Documentary Studies, Durham, North Carolina and To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. They launched their Internet opera The Sour Thunder at Yale University. Awards include the John Hope Franklin Documentary Award, the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies and the Franklin Furnace Performance Art Award. Their writing was featured in the film Take These Chains and in numerous art periodicals.

They live in Connecticut.