What does it mean to inherit a form without its original function? In The Skeuomorph, Mendi + Keith Obadike explore this question through sound, sculpture, and imagery, tracing the echoes of technology, language, and memory.

At the center of the exhibition stands BLKBX (BB)—a sculptural object, a "smarter" speaker, and a speculative AI entity trained on documents of African American and African Diasporic histories, biographies, and philosophies of freedom. BLKBX challenges our relationship to knowledge, autonomy, and historical narratives. Rooted in African-American freedom struggles and Igbo cosmology, The Skeuomorph unfolds as a poetic meditation on technological agency and the myths we encode in our machines.

Through a multisensory installation featuring reimagined political speeches, archival fragments, and layered sonic environments, the exhibition invites visitors to consider how history reverberates in the present—shaping the voices we amplify, the ones we silence, and the futures we imagine.