New Genres: artificial intelligence

Onome Ekeh: Afrofuturism, AI and Memory at the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires

March 25, 2025 | nadiaevangelina

The exhibition "Speculations" by Nigerian artist Onome Ekeh at the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires immerses us in an alternative dimension where past, present, and future collide. Ekeh, who has developed her work at the intersection of cinema, literature, and artificial intelligence, proposes re-reading the historical future from an Afrofuturist perspective, re-signifying narratives and proposing scenarios in which colonization and slavery never happened.

Onome Ekeh

Under the curatorship of Victoria Noorthoorn, director of the Modern Museum, the exhibition is presented as a space for critical speculation in which the artist reconstructs an Africa without the colonial wound, imagining scenarios in which the continent thrives without the interruptions imposed by slavery and colonization. Noorthoorn, with her curatorial approach, is always committed to contemporary art as a tool for transformation, which enhances Ekeh's work's ability to question the viewers and challenge their referential framework.

One of the exhibition's centerpieces is the Africa Jetset series, in which Ekeh uses images generated by artificial intelligence to recreate a vibrant and cosmopolitan Africa, where black leaders and artists occupy the spaces of power and historical representation. The use of artificial intelligence in her creative process allows her to model scenarios where African elites star on the covers of society magazines, evoking a parallel reality of splendor and sophistication.

These images challenge the Eurocentric construction of history and confront us with what could have been, but also with what can still be: a prosperous, economically independent continent, without the disruption of the forced diaspora.

Onome Ekeh

Another key aspect of the exhibition is the exploration of the forest as a mythological space of resistance. In Ekeh's work, the forest is both a refuge and a territory of transformation, evoking not only traditional African narratives but also the symbolism of Western fairy tales. In times where artificial intelligence redefines the concept of creation, this exhibition opens crucial questions about the role of memory, identity, and the possibility of imagining different futures.

With "Speculations", Onome Ekeh reminds us that art is, in essence, a way of rewriting the world. Curated by Victoria Noorthoorn, the exhibition confronts us with the possibilities of a future where memory, identity, and technology converge to expand the limits of the imaginable.