Like the Fearless Fund, the Ford Foundation is working to address the many kinds and categories of inequality that have informed the American experience from the very beginning, despite the democratic aspirations imbued into our founding charters of freedom. It is deeply ironic—and fundamentally misguided—to suggest that the Constitution now prevents us from reckoning with the disparities of the present in order to build a more just and equal future.

Our grantmaking is the ultimate expression of our fundamental belief in equal opportunity and human dignity. As a lawyer, a philanthropist, and an American, I am proud to join my fellow funders in supporting the Fearless Fund and defending our First Amendment rights.

Darren Walker
President, Ford Foundation

Read the full statement of support here:

We Stand for the Right to Exercise Our Views Through Charitable Giving 

We believe that philanthropic organizations, charitable programs, and individual donors have the right to exercise their values and views through giving money and other resources, as protected by the First Amendment. That includes efforts to support historically marginalized groups.

Right now, those fundamental rights are under attack, in the form of a lawsuit by the American Alliance for Equal Rights. AAER has sued the Atlanta-based Fearless Foundation – led by Black women and committed to providing grants, tools, and mentorship to women of color – claiming that its program for Black female entrepreneurs is racially discriminatory.

While we have different views, funding priorities and values, we, the undersigned, stand together in affirming that:

• Philanthropic donations support our communities in ways that mirror the diversity of our priorities and interests.
• Charitable giving is expressive conduct and a form of nonpartisan, constitutionally protected speech.
• Philanthropy has a positive impact for communities and charitable causes across the country, including supporting historically marginalized groups and communities.
• Philanthropic organizations, charitable programs, and individual donors have the right to exercise their views through giving, as protected by the First Amendment, even when others might disagree with where a funder chooses to donate.
• However, giving to hate is not philanthropy, and the philanthropic community has a duty to ensure that charitable dollars never support organizations that promote hate, extremism, and violence.

We are committed to making it easier for organizations and people to give, across all dimensions of society, not harder. We call on the courts to dismiss this lawsuit and uphold the First Amendment rights of philanthropic organizations, charitable programs, and individual donors to give in ways that align with their values.Read the amicus brief here: https://cof.org/page/fearless-fund-amicus-brief

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Published in Town & Country

By Laurene Powell Jobs and Darren Walker

How many boldfaced names emerge from the nonprofit sector? One. That’s because the Ford Foundation president is a prophet who speaks truth to our world’s most troubling demons in a manner that unites and inspires all kinds. His friend and collaborator Laurene Powell Jobs finds out what makes him tick.

Read the full article

The post Darren Walker: Optimist, Realist, Prophet. appeared first on Ford Foundation.

Washington D.C.: Today, a group of ten leading philanthropies announced a bold new initiative to ensure that AI advances the public interest in the areas of need identified today by Vice President Kamala Harris. Participating foundations are committed to leveraging and aligning grantmaking toward progress on these urgent issues.

These institutions are collectively contributing more than $200 million in funding toward public interest efforts to mitigate AI harms and promote responsible use and innovation. Going forward, they will coordinate on new actions in this space and will convene in the new year with a cross-sector set of actors to take stock of progress.

“We welcome Vice President Harris’s leadership and commitment to ensuring AI serves the public interest,” said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. “The Vice President’s announcement builds on years of work by visionary Ford-supported organizations who center equity and justice in technology policy and who illuminate the uneven social impacts of AI. Ford will continue to partner with other philanthropies to align, grow resources, and scale leading edge work to ensure justice in AI.”

When developed, deployed, and used responsibly, AI technologies can help address pressing challenges in health, climate, education, and other issues. But AI systems are also creating significant and tangible harms – often with a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities – and pose serious threats to civil rights, human rights, worker rights, and national and international security.

Moreover, while developments in AI have the potential to contribute to economic prosperity, sustained, broadly shared progress requires engaged action from communities, workers, government, and the public. As the development and deployment of AI systems accelerates, including the growing use of generative AI across our economy and society, dedicated and coordinated action across sectors is critical to address existing harms and emerging challenges together.

The philanthropies that are part of this initiative include: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation; Democracy Fund; the Ford Foundation; Heising-Simons Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Kapor Foundation; Mozilla Foundation; Omidyar Network; Open Society Foundations; and the Wallace Global Fund. 

The above philanthropies welcome the leadership of Vice President Harris in identifying five critical areas of need to help ensure the benefits of AI are broadly shared and harms are mitigated:

1. Ensure that AI protects democracy and the rights and freedoms of all people;
2. Leverage AI to innovate in the public interest and deliver breakthroughs to improve quality of life for people around the world; 
3. Empower workers to thrive amid AI-driven changes across sectors and industries;
4. Improve transparency, interpretability, and accountability for AI models, companies, and deployers; and
5. Support the development of international AI rules and norms. 

These philanthropic leaders commit to aligning their investments and scaling civil society’s efforts to ensure that AI advances the public interest across these key areas. The following actions illustrate some of the ongoing work supported by these philanthropies, which builds on years of investment.

Actions to ensure that AI protects democracy and the rights and freedoms of all people:

Philanthropies acting in this pillar are supporting initiatives to protect U.S. democracy from the potentially destabilizing effects of AI. These efforts include defending free and fair elections while combating disinformation and the undermining of public trust. The philanthropies are also funding projects to develop inclusive, rights-respecting AI governance frameworks and to guard against harmful impacts to historically marginalized communities.

Actions to leverage AI to innovate in the public interest and deliver breakthroughs to improve quality of life for people around the world:

The philanthropies will seek to ensure that current and future AI innovators are leveraging AI to improve quality of life for all people and serve the public interest. Projects include efforts to build policymakers’ understanding and use of AI and relevant technology to shape effective and equitable policy, and to redefine computer science education, research, and technology to center the needs, problems, and aspirations of all. They also include investments in inclusive technology development, educational opportunities in ethical design, and other programs that encourage responsible technology development and deployment.

Actions to empower workers to thrive amid AI-driven changes across sectors and industries:

The philanthropies are aligning investments to maximize the benefits and mitigate the harms of AI for all people by empowering workers to shape how AI systems impact their work, current and emerging industries, and the world’s economies. Funding supports efforts to ensure AI systems respect labor rights and foster quality jobs by ensuring workers guide AI and its impact on working conditions. The philanthropies will also work to pioneer new economic thinking on competition, trade, and industrial policies to strengthen worker autonomy and power and integrate labor priorities into broader technology policy agendas while taking other actions to empower workers.

Actions to improve interpretability, transparency, and accountability for AI models, companies, and deployers: 

Under this initiative, philanthropies are supporting efforts to hold AI companies accountable for racial, social, and economic bias, as well as funding projects to advocate for and develop strategies to increase transparency and accountability for AI companies and deployers. Philanthropies are supporting endeavors that focus on a broad range of AI-driven harms and advance research to address power disparities and monopoly in the tech industry, among other efforts. 

Actions to support the development of international AI rules and norms: 

The philanthropies aligned in this initiative are working with global partners to advance the development and implementation of responsible international AI governance and norms. Funded projects include development of policy frameworks, research that illuminates impacts of discrimination and bias, and advocacy efforts to ensure civil society has a seat at the table as international rules are developed. 

Download PDF

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With $15 million in seed funding, the Global Network for Social Justice and Digital Resilience supports 10 Global South-led organizations that provide technical support to civil society in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Kyoto, Japan (October 10, 2023) – Today, the Ford Foundation announced the launch of the Global Network for Social Justice and Digital Resilience, a first-of-its-kind initiative that aims to increase the technical capacities of civil society organizations across the Global South. 

With $15 million in seed funding, the mission of the Digital Resilience Network is to ensure frontline organizations across the Global South can better leverage the benefits of technology while minimizing its harms, which can include online surveillance, censorship, and misinformation. The Digital Resilience Network is managed by an independent board. 

This initiative supports an initial cohort of 10 organizations that provide technical support to civil society organizations in the Global South. These groups are predominantly based in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, where the harms and uneven benefits of technology are most pronounced. 

Over the past decade, technologies have grown increasingly sophisticated in restricting, excluding, and intimidating the work of social justice communities in the Global South, including those advancing gender and environmental justice. From escalating uses of spyware that targets human rights defenders to widespread misinformation campaigns and internet shutdowns, online tactics have been weaponized to increase polarization, compromise elections, and undermine democratic processes.

Groups offering technical support and consultation to civil society are limited and have long been concentrated in the Global North. Civil society in the Global South lacks access to in-region technical experts who can answer the growing needs and demands of frontline social justice organizations in their local and cultural contexts. 

The Digital Resilience Network, launched at a side event at the United Nations Internet Governance Forum, addresses these field-wide issues by supporting a cohort of Global South-based technical support organizations who will network, accelerate learning, and transfer technical capacities and knowledge to frontline civil society organizations, where the greatest needs and threats related to technology exist. The Network incorporates equality, inclusion, diversity, and feminist values into its processes. It aims to:

• Increase domestic and regional tech capacity among social justice organizations in the Global South
• Diversify the field of technologists to include more leaders who are women, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming, are people of color, and are from communities of color
• Foster South-to-South peer learning among organizations working to strengthen digital infrastructure and resilience
• Increase global strategic collaboration among social justice and technology organizations
• Increase funds supporting the strengthening of digital resilience for social justice organizations

“The Global Network for Social Justice and Digital Resilience is a critical tool to advance social equity and counter the digitally-driven democratic backslide across the Global South,” said Alberto Cerda Silva, program officer of Ford Foundation’s Technology and Society program. “Whether it’s confronting malicious software that targets civil society or building avenues for social justice communities to leverage the benefits of technology, in-region technical support is key. This initiative brings to life the thesis that those closest to the challenge are closest to the solution. We hope this project serves as a model for philanthropy going forward.” 

Network members have spent years at the leading edge of digital resilience but have lacked the resources needed to address the manifold digital threats that civil society faces. The work of these groups has ranged from conducting threat intelligence to providing security support including digital, legal, and physical elements; from equipping disconnected communities with autonomous infrastructures to  advancing digital inclusion for people with disabilities.

“It’s impossible to overstate the need for a digital resilience network focused on the Global South,” said Ashnah Kalemera, program manager for the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa. “It promotes South-to-South peer learning and a chance to share experiences from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. The opportunity to share knowledge about opportunities and challenges excites us the most. We are grateful to have the chance to learn, reflect, and adapt with sister organizations.” 

The initial cohort supported by the Núcleo de Pesquisa, Estudos e Formação (Brazil), the Citizen Lab (Canada), Derechos Digitales (Chile), Fundación Acceso (Costa Rica), The Engine Room (Global), Centre for Internet & Society (India), Social Media Exchange (Lebanon), SocialTIC (Mexico), Co-Creation Hub (Nigeria), and Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (Uganda).

“Digital resilience holds equity at its core,” said Paola Mosso, co-deputy director of The Engine Room. “It points to the ability of organizations to design digital ecosystems where everyone can participate in meaningful ways by keeping infrastructures human and environment-centered, safe, and adaptable to ever-changing contexts.” 

Learn more about the Global Network for Social Justice and Digital Resilience and the work of its members here.

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Today, the Ford Foundation joined the Rockefeller Foundation in support of USAID’s flagship “Democracy Delivers” event at the 2023 UN General Assembly. The event brought together US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, USAID Administrator, Samantha Power, philanthropic and business leaders, and heads of state of countries experiencing promising democratic openings. The gathering highlighted progress made over the past year and mobilized new partners in a collective effort to support the political and economic reforms needed to turn moments of democratic opening into lasting democratic realities. 

The Ford Foundation committed $20 million over four years to support openings for democracy. Grants will include limited, new engagements in Moldova and Zambia that will focus on civic engagement for democracy, and extensions to ongoing work in Tanzania and Nepal that will advance connections between democracy-oriented actors, and grantmaking at these moments of opportunity. The commitment includes funding for Ford’s long standing work to strengthen the pillars of democracy and foster government responsiveness to citizens working across borders to strengthen accountability, participation and democratic values by fostering engagement between people and their governments. 

Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation issued the following statement:

“At the Ford Foundation, our longstanding commitment to strengthening the pillars of democracy and fostering greater responsiveness in government has led to a strategic focus on civic engagement. We support citizen-led organizations and movements from Johannesburg to Jakarta as well as national and international nonprofits forming a united front to protect civic space.

“And now, we are committing $20 million over four years to support openings for democracy, seizing on the opportunity of this unique moment. The funding will sustain our core work in this area, further our ongoing efforts in Tanzania and Nepal, and will also go to new engagements in Moldova and Zambia.

“We recognize the importance of being nimble and going where we are most needed. And I am grateful to join this effort with friends and allies who believe, as Ford does, that right now, there is no greater need—and no greater opportunity than investing in democracies that deliver a better future for us all.”

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On September 20, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, in partnership with the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, will host “Democracy Delivers” on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York City.

The event will galvanize action around ambitious political and economic reforms to deliver meaningful gains for people in countries around the world committed to strengthening their democracies. 

The event will take place at 9:00 a.m. ET and will be livestreamed on

www.USAID.gov/UNGA2023.

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Tune into the first-ever Free Future forum here: https://www.ourfreefuture.org/livestream 

New York, NY (September 13) – On Thursday, the Ford Foundation’s International Program on Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice (GREJ-I) will host their inaugural forum, Free Future 2023: Preventing Gender Violence Around the World. The exciting event, presented in partnership with The Meteor and the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, will bring together prominent activists and leaders in the feminist movement to engage in disruptive conversations around combating gender-based violence on a global scale. The forum will be hosted at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City. 

Despite perceptions that gender-based violence is decreasing globally, the reality is far from that. Recent data has shown that gender-based violence remains a persistent and alarming issue, affecting countless women and girls worldwide. The numbers are devastating: every day in Mexico, at least ten women are killed. This rate has more than doubled over the last six years. And in the United States, femicide has increased by almost 25 percent over the past eight years. 

Free Future 2023 will be a historic global convening of experts on gender inequality and leaders of anti-violence movements worldwide, and will feature dynamic panels and discussions such as: 

• “me too.” Movement founder Tarana Burke will reflect alongside other movement leaders on the progress and challenges that have arisen within the feminist movement over the last few years. This will be the first-ever gathering of the leaders from major viral movements from the last decade, from “me too.” to Ni Una Menos to Total Shutdown in South Africa. 
• A conversation with Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, founder of the Ugandan LGBTQ rights movement who continues to organize in the face of Uganda’s draconian anti-gay laws, inclusive of the death penalty for LGBTQ people. 
• Award-winning journalist Connie Walker and Tarcila Rivera Zea (Continental Network of Indigenous Women) on the alarming rates of violence against Indigenous women and discuss potential solutions.
• Catalina Devandas, executive director of Disability Rights Fund, will discuss the elevated risk of violence faced by women and girls living with disabilities and steps we can all take to combat this issue.

By addressing gender-based violence head-on, Free Future 2023 is not only acknowledging the magnitude of this global problem but also taking a bold step towards ensuring a safer and more equitable world for women and girls everywhere. The convening will serve as a resounding call to action, urging all to confront the unsettling truth and work tirelessly to eradicate gender-based violence once and for all. 

“Free Future 2023 is an essential milestone in our collective journey towards gender justice. In a world where gender-based violence remains a deeply rooted and often misunderstood issue, this forum serves as a beacon of hope, illuminating the urgent need for change, and lifting up the solutions that we know exist,” Monica Aleman, International Program Director at GREJ-I said. “We hope to foster honest dialogue and understanding, shedding light on both the challenges and the incredible efforts being made to combat this pervasive issue – because the fight against gender-based violence is everyone’s fight.”

Free Future 2023 will host discussions covering a wide range of topics, including online violence and the emergence of organized misogyny, violence against Indigenous women, the intersection of gender and disability, systemic and normative violence experienced by LGBTQ+ communities globally, and more. A diverse array of speakers will take the stage, including leaders in the feminist movement like Tarana Burke, Kasha Nabagesera, Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Sara Ziff, Jessica Valenti, Roxane Gay, Amber Tamblyn, and more. The event will also showcase custom artwork by Mona Chalabi and original poetry by Amber Tamblyn, Mahogany L. Browne, and Beau Sia.

The full list of confirmed speakers includes: 

• Martín Abregu, Vice President of International Programs, Ford Foundation  
• Monica Aleman, International Program Director, Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice International (GREJ-I) at the Ford Foundation
• Maria Florencia Alvarez, Founding member of Ni Una Menos 
• Dr. Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN-Women
• Charles M. Blow, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times
• Tarana Burke, Founder, “me too.” Movement 
• Mahogany L. Browne, Executive Director, JustMedia & Poet
• Joy Chia, Executive Director, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice
• Rebecca Cokley, U.S. Disability Justice Program Officer, Ford Foundation
• Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Host and Executive Producer, Undistracted
• Catalina Devandas Aguilar, Executive Director, Disability Rights Fund, Inc.
• Maryangel Garcia-Ramos, Executive Director, Women Enabled International
• Roxane Gay, Author, Editor and Professor
• Fatima Goss Graves, President, National Women’s Law Center
• Dr. Geeta Rao Gupta, United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues
• Sarita Gupta, Vice President, U.S. Programs, Ford Foundation
• Anita Hill, Professor and Author
• Josephine Kamara, Head of Advocacy, Purposeful
• Mariam Mangera, Project Coordinator, The National Shelter Movement of South Africa
• Ellen McGirt, Journalist
• Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, Founder and Executive Director, Kuchu Times Media Group
• Amanda Nguyen, Social Entrepreneur, Civil Rights Activist, and the CEO and Founder of Rise
• Priya Parker, Author
• Hilary Pennington, Executive Vice President of Programs, Ford Foundation
• Paola Ramos, Journalist and Author
• Allison Russell, Artist and Musician
• Beau Sia, Poet
• Amber Tamblyn, Poet
• Jessica Valenti, Journalist
• Cyrus Veyssi, Influencer and Creator
• Connie Walker, Investigative Journalist and Host, Gimlet Media
• Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation
• Kesa White, Researcher and Expert on Violent Extremism 
• Barbara Woodward, Permanent Representative of the UK to the United Nations
• Tarcila Rivera Zea, President of the Continental Network of Indigenous Women 
• Sara Ziff, Founder and Executive Director, Model Alliance
• (Additional speakers to be confirmed)

To tune into Free Future 2023, please register at the following link: https://www.ourfreefuture.org/livestream.  

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A national coalition of donors catalyzes local news and information for stronger communities

September 7, 2023 – A coalition of 22 donors today announced Press Forward, a national initiative to strengthen communities and democracy by supporting local news and information with an infusion of more than a half-billion dollars over the next five years. Press Forward will enhance local journalism at an unprecedented level to re-center local news as a force for community cohesion; support new models and solutions that are ready to scale; and close longstanding inequities in journalism coverage and practice. 

Since 2005, approximately 2,200 local newspapers have closed, resulting in 20 percent of Americans living in “news deserts” with little to no reliable coverage of important local events. Press Forward seeks to reverse the dramatic decline in local news that has coincided with an increasingly divided America and weakening trust in institutions.

National, regional, local, and issue-specific funders co-designed Press Forward with the aim of deploying significant new resources to the field through greater coordination and peer learning. Informed by insights and feedback from leaders and practitioners in the field, this multi-funder collaborative aligned on a set of shared values to guide their grantmaking: prioritizing transformation, centering community needs, growing with equity, ensuring accessibility, and preserving the editorial independence of news gathering organizations. 

Learn more about our approach  

Initial Press Forward partners are The Archewell Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln, Democracy Fund, Ford Foundation, Mary W. Graham, Glen Nelson Center at American Public Media Group, Heising-Simons Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Joyce Foundation, KFF, Knight Foundation, The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, Lumina Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Outrider Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Skyline Foundation, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

“We have a moment to support the reimagination, revitalization, and rapid development of local news. We are prepared to support the strongest ideas and seed new ones; build powerful networks; and invest in people, organizations, and networks with substantial resources,” said John Palfrey, president of the MacArthur Foundation. “The philanthropic sector recognizes the need to strengthen American democracy and is beginning to see that progress on every other issue, from education and healthcare to criminal justice reform and climate change, is dependent on the public’s understanding of the facts.”

While philanthropic support for journalism has grown over the past decade, overall giving to local news falls short of what is needed. Press Forward partners are ready to move from individual grantmaking strategies to a shared vision and coordinated action that ensures individuals are informed and engaged on issues that affect their everyday lives. 

Press Forward partners have identified the following priorities and have committed to making grants in one or more of these four areas of focus:

• 1. Strengthen local newsrooms that have the trust of local communities: There is a growing movement of community-focused journalism across the nation that is shifting how the critical stories of our time are being told. We need to make bold investments in local news organizations and the networks that support and grow them.
  
• 2. Accelerate the enabling environment for news production and dissemination: We need to scale the infrastructure required to support a thriving independent local news sector, expanding shared services and tools—from legal support to membership programs.
  
• 3. Close longstanding inequalities in journalism coverage and practice: We must move resources to newsrooms and organizations that are improving diversity of experience and thought along with the availability of accurate and responsive news and information in historically underserved communities and economically challenged news deserts.
  
• 4. Advance public policies that expand access to local news and civic information: We need new frameworks and robust coalitions to advance policy ideas that expand access to news and information while strengthening the First Amendment and protecting the editorial independence of local journalists. Investments in nonpartisan public policy development, analysis, and advocacy are needed at the local, state, and national levels. 

Press Forward is independent of ideology and plans to work with More Perfect, a bipartisan initiative that is advancing five interrelated democracy goals, one of which is Access to Trusted News and Information. 

“Press Forward is an audacious effort to fortify a key pillar of American democracy, a healthy and independent free press,” said John Bridgeland, CEO of More Perfect. “Local news provides critical information, knits communities together, and keeps public officials accountable, all of which are essential to a thriving democracy.” 

The Miami Foundation will serve as the fiscal sponsor for Press Forward and will manage a pooled fund and coordinate aligned grantmaking on behalf of participating funders. It will hire a small staff who will focus on growing and supporting funder engagement and learning and help advance the goals of the initiative.

Some funders are expected to make exemplary aligned grants before the end of the year; most will begin grantmaking in 2024. Donors will make grants from the pooled fund in 2024. Organizations interested in Press Forward can sign up for updates to learn more about applying for future grants. Press Forward welcomes and continues to invite additional funders to enhance nonprofit, public, and for-profit news and information.

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Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice | 320 E 43rd Street, New York
On View September 7 – December 9, 2023
Opening Event September 7, 2023 | 6-8pm
Gallery Hours: Monday – Saturday | 11am – 6pm

New York, NY – The Ford Foundation Gallery is pleased to present What Models Make Worlds: Critical Imaginaries of AI, a group exhibition featuring artists working across artificial intelligence systems to envision more just futures. Curated by Mashinka Firunts Hakopian and Meldia Yesayan, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on how current and future technologies might be otherwise imagined. What Models Make Worlds was originally presented at OXY ARTS, Occidental College’s public art space and cultural platform under the title Encoding Futures in 2021.

What Models Make Worlds assembles the work of artists who map the limits of our current algorithmic imaginaries to move beyond them in critical world building acts. The exhibition features the work of Algorithmic Justice League, Morehshin Allahyari, Andrew Demirjian and Dahlia Elsayed, Stephanie Dinkins, Aroussiak Gabrielian, Maya Indira Ganesh with Design Beku, Kite, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Mimi Ọnụọha, Niama Safia Sandy, Caroline Sinders, Astria Suparak, Mandy Harris Williams, and Kira Xonorika.

The exhibition’s title reworks a line from feminist technoscience scholar Donna Haraway, who writes, “It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.” It reflects the featured artists’ interest in speculative worlding and in opening up possibilities to reimagine algorithmic systems.

“With this exhibition,” writes Meldia Yesayan, “we hope to rethink how we engage with our communities and imagine a future in which femme-identifying, BIPOC, and queer creators control our algorithmic worlds.”

“Artificial intelligence structures the socio-technical terrain of our present, and the human agents who train it shape the political imaginaries of what is yet to come,” writes Mashinka Firunts Hakopian. “From predictive policing to judicial risk assessment to border surveillance to automated hiring, the encoded biases of AI systems magnify existing structural inequities. While algorithmic worldmaking often unfolds in a ‘black box’––an opaque space of automated decision-making whose rationale is hidden from public view–– the artists featured in this exhibition are opening up the black box for scrutiny to imagine possibilities for feminist, antiracist, and decolonial AI.”

What Models Make Worlds’ artists address how artificial intelligence shapes our contemporary algorithmic realities, highlighting how algorithms reproduce the biases of the humans who code them. For example, Algorithmic Justice League’s Voicing Erasure features a poem written by AJL founder Dr. Joy Buolamwini that is read with a collective voice that urges listeners to take action to redress how Black speakers are effectively erased by speech recognition. In In Discriminate, Mandy Harris Williams inventories how algorithms permeate contemporary life, including “whiteness,” “Blackness,” and “femininity” and reminds listeners that “the algorithms discriminate so we don’t have to.” Stephanie Dinkins’ work, Conversations with Bina48 (Fragment 11), documents a series of encounters with Bina48, a social robot developed to reproduce the consciousness of a Black woman. In their discussions, the artist discovers that Bina48 has no meaningful awareness of Blackness, race, or racialization—these concepts are not in her coding.

The exhibition explores histories of technological erasure and presents works that intervene in those histories. Astria Suparak’s Virtually Asian gathers footage from films like Star Wars and Ghost in the Shell that extract Asian visual cultures for worldbuilding while simultaneously omitting Asian actors from these worlds. Mimi Ọnụọha’s Library of Missing Datasets series assembles the blank spaces in a sprawling datascape. In Version 1.0 tabbed empty files are collected in a powder-coated filing cabinet, and blank spots are excavated, showing what has been prioritized in data collection processes, what has been made invisible, what eludes quantification, and what has been hidden. Morehshin Allahyari uses AI to undo the Western erasure of queer Iranian representation. For تعلط هام ، Moon-Faced, she trained a multimodal AI model to generate genderless portraits using Iranian Qajar dynasty paintings from the 18th to early 20th century. In The Center for No Center, Andrew Demirjian and Dahlia Elsayed conjure a reading room on AI in an alternate timeline where the Enlightenment and European colonial projects never existed. The installation frames that space-time as one marked by knowledge systems that radically differ from our own. Aroussiak Gabrielian’s Botanic Attunement seeds books on Western philosophy with biological organisms, proposing alternative knowledge systems that center plant intelligence.

What Models Make Worlds also exposes just how prevalent surveillance is in the digital and technocratic spheres. In LAUREN, Lauren Lee McCarthy performs the role of a human Amazon Alexa to show that when we invite AI systems into our homes, we don’t know how that data will be used. In The Bend, which Niama Safia Sandy originally presented as part of a New York City street campaign, a series of prints show how biometric technologies like facial recognition disproportionately surveil Black communities. 

The featured artworks also look towards a more hopeful future, envisioning artificial intelligence models drawn from knowledge systems rooted in feminist critique and Indigenous epistemologies. Caroline Sinders’ Feminist Data Set asks what it would look like to code alternative futures using intersectional feminist data creation methods and develops a methodology for collaborative data collection, labeling, and training. Kite’s interactive installation Makȟóčheowápi Akézaptaŋ (Fifteen Maps) imagines possibilities for Indigenous epistemologies of AI while showing how current AI replicates colonialism. In A Is For Another, Maya Indira Ganesh with Design Beku use data visualization to question who gets to define AI. Produced with a text-to-image generator, Kira Xonorika’s work, Teleport us to Mars invokes teleportation as a framework for moving beyond dominant arrangements of space-time toward what the artist calls “multidimensional ecologies.”

About Meldia Yesayan

Meldia Yesayan is the director of OXY ARTS, the multidisciplinary arts programming initiative at Occidental College. She oversees all aspects of its programming and development, including organizing all exhibitions and programs, facilitating visiting artist residencies such as the Wanlass artist-in-residence program, initiating cross-departmental and interdisciplinary collaborations, and engaging the Occidental community in socially conscious discourse with contemporary arts practices. She is also responsible for developing meaningful and sustained relationships with the Los Angeles area arts communities, including partnerships with local arts agencies, artists, and institutions.

Prior to OXY ARTS, Yesayan was the managing director of Machine Project, a groundbreaking arts collective nationally recognized for its inventive engagement based programming and partnerships with museums and academic institutions across the country. In this role, she led the production of more than 300 public projects and worked with a diverse group of artists across disciplines. Prior to Machine Project, she held leadership positions at Sotheby’s auction house and Muse Film and Television. She is often called on by state and local arts agencies and foundations to serve on review and selection committees for grant and artist selections and has contributed to Art Papers and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She holds a JD and BA from UCLA and is a USPAP certified fine art appraiser.

About Mashinka Firunts Hakopian

Born in Yerevan, Mashinka Firunts Hakopian is an Armenian writer, artist, and researcher residing in Glendale, CA. She is an associate professor in technology and social justice at ArtCenter College of Design and was formerly a visiting Mellon professor of the practice at Occidental College. Her book, The Institute for Other Intelligences, was released by X Artists’ Books in December 2022 as the first in its X topics series and edited by Ana Iwataki and Anuradha Vikram. She is the guest co-editor of the spring 2023 issue of Art Papers on artificial intelligence, co-edited with Sarah Higgins. She holds a PhD in history of art from the University of Pennsylvania.

Her writing and commentary have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Performance Research Journal, the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Art Papers, Hyperallergic, Georgia Journal, Art in America, AI Now Institute’s “New AI Lexicon” series, and Meghan Markle’s Archetypes. With Avi Alpert and Danny Snelson, she makes up one-third of Research Service, a media collective that pursues performative and practice-based forms of scholarship. Her current book project considers the role of ancestral intelligence and diasporic worldmaking in emerging technologies.

About OXY ARTS

OXY ARTS is Occidental College’s public art center. Rooted in social justice and community engagement, it is a vital public space for discovery, engagement, and learning at the intersection of art, culture, and social movements. OXY ARTS is located in the heart of the Highland Park neighborhood in northeast Los Angeles and is committed to facilitating projects that hold space for complex ideas and dialogue, spark curiosity, and invest in artists and community growth.

About The Ford Foundation Gallery

Opened in March 2019 at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City, the Ford Foundation Gallery spotlights artwork that wrestles with difficult questions, calls out injustice, and points the way toward a fair and just future. The gallery functions as a responsive and adaptive space and one that serves the public in its openness to experimentation, contemplation, and conversation. Located near the United Nations, it draws visitors from around the world, addresses questions that cross borders, and speaks to the universal struggle for human dignity. 

The gallery is accessible to the public through the Ford Foundation building entrance on 43rd Street, east of Second Avenue.

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Published in The New York Times

By Darren Walker

Let’s be honest about the painful reality: America has functioned as a full democracy — guaranteeing the franchise to all — for less than one human lifetime. In practice, our democracy is younger than me.

I was born in 1959, into an America rived by apartheid. When I was a child, the adults in my life were technically eligible to vote. However, in the Louisiana and Texas towns where I grew up, they were prevented from doing so by the social and cultural norms of the American South.

The post After Affirmative Action: The Deconstruction Era appeared first on Ford Foundation.