Calendar of Events

Free and open to the public
Location: Wilson Hall (Google map of this location)

Vanderbilt University and StudioVU: The Department of Art Lecture Series welcomes Mendi and Keith Obadike, who will speak on their music, live art and conceptual internet artworks.

Mendi + Keith Obadike make music, art, and literature. Their work has been commissioned by The Kitchen, Rhizome / The New Museum, The NY African Film Festival with Electronic Arts Intermix, Northwestern University, Bucknell University, the Yale Cabaret, Whitechapel Art Gallery (London), and The Whitney Museum of American Art. They have released two albums on Bridge Records, a book of poetry with Lotus Press, and have two artists’ books to be released this year on 1913 Press. They are currently exhibiting their new series of sound installations entitled African Metropole: Sonic Cities and touring their opera-masquerade Four Electric Ghosts.

Keith received a BA in Art from North Carolina Central University and an MFA in Sound Design from Yale University. He is an associate professor in the College of Arts and Communication at William Paterson University and serves as an art advisor for the Times Square Alliance.

Mendi received a BA in English from Spelman College and a PhD in Literature from Duke University. After working as a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University, she became a poetry editor at Fence Magazine and an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Media Studies at Pratt Institute. Both Mendi and Keith grew up in Nashville, TN.

For more information, please visit www.vanderbilt.edu/arts or call 615-343-7241.