2025/11/29

Mimi Ọnụọha Excavates Data’s Silences at Secession

Mimi Ọnụọha’s “Soft Zeros” examines archival failure and unstable knowledge at Vienna’s Secession. The American artist uses the statistical term ‘soft zero’—values registered as absent but unverified—as a framework for understanding erasure within data systems. Central is Ground Truths (2025), a docu-fiction film in which Ọnụọha trains a machine-learning model to locate potential mass graves across Texas—prompted by the Sugar Land 95, remains of Black forced labourers discovered near her childhood home in 2018.

Metadata: People: / Organizations: / Locations: / Contributors: / Photo: Mimi Ọnụọha, Ground Truths (2025), installation view / Sophie Pölzi for Secession
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$40 USD