If We Don’t, Who Will?

More Art is thrilled to announce If We Don’t, Who Will?, a public art commission by transdisciplinary artist Stephanie Dinkins.

A leading voice in AI and emerging media, Dinkins is known for creating critical artworks that illuminate the intersections of artificial intelligence with race, gender, cultural memory, and history. In this project, she invited the public to engage with a performative and functional artificial intelligence laboratory in a public plaza in Downtown Brooklyn.

Blending sculptural, technical, and performative approaches, If We Don’t, Who Will? was framed as the introductory chapter of an evolving series of planned works by Dinkins entitled The Stories We Tell Our Machines. The project challenged the conventions of AI by centering the culture, craft, and the well-being of historically underrepresented communities within the global majority. Guided by the artist’s belief that a more equitable and just AI is possible, If We Don’t, Who Will? encourages us to build care-filled relationships with machine intelligences, demonstrating that care is at the core of our humanity. 

If We Don’t, Who Will? was installed on the Plaza at 300 Ashland Place in the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District from June 25-November 2, 2025. Designed in collaboration with renowned architects LOT-EK, the laboratory is housed in an upcycled shipping container, transforming the space into an interactive site for storytelling and exploration. Neighbors, community members, and passersby were invited to contribute to a growing dataset of stories that reflect the vast diversity of human experience. The Stories We Tell Our Machines will evolve over the coming years across a variety of venues and taking a multitude of forms including DNA printing, community events, and an interactive app. 

Click here to read the press release.

The project fosters cultural exchange between AI lab technicians, the public, and bespoke AI algorithms, which work together to generate visual responses to contributed stories. In doing so, it maps out new possibilities for co-creation and care between humans and machines.

Dinkins aims to demystify AI’s “black box,” revealing how the data we feed into these systems shapes their perceptions—and, in turn, how they impact our society. As Dinkins explains:

“Our attention, understanding, advocacy, and participation in nurturing AI are crucial to creating a world that supports all of us—not just a select few. AI runs the risk of perpetuating harmful biases and stereotypes embedded in our society. However, when our stories are self-determined, nuanced, and culturally specific, they can foster AI systems that reflect and uplift the experiences of everyday people.”

Named one of the 100 Most Influential People in AI 2023 by Time Magazine, Dinkins’ work continues to advocate and push for a future where people from all walks of life can actively shape AI systems that are trustworthy, collaborative, and truly representative of our shared humanity.  

LOT-EK is a team of architects, thinkers, and makers. We come together around our love for people, the objects we make, and the ones we dismiss. We focus on upcycling. We make sustainable, soulful architecture through the transformation of industrial infrastructural objects and systems. We work with the ordinary.

LOT-EK’s projects range from installations with artists; through houses for families; through cultural projects for communities, institutions, and museums. Our practice has developed work from our hometown of New York around the world, from Queensland, Australia, through Huangshan, China to Johannesburg, South Africa.

LOT-EK’s team is a tight knit group of designers, we each bringing our voice, sensibility, and heritage to our common project. LOT-EK’s founding partners are Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano, we live and work in New York; grew up in Naples, Italy; have been practicing together since 1993; and teach at Columbia University GSAPP.

LOT-EK’s work has received awards and accolades, from the Emerging Voices from the Architecture League to The New York American Institute of Architects (AIA) Honor Awards, and it is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. LOT-EK’s second monograph, in collaboration with Thomas de Monchaux, is O+O: Objects + Operations, published by The Monacelli Press.

The son of Caribbean immigrants, James Allister Sprang is an artist, technologist and researcher who considers his relationship to Diasporic timelines while weaving together his multimedia work. This work is informed by the Black interior as well as radical and experimental traditions. Sprang’s work lives in gallery spaces, theater spaces and the space between the ears. He has taught at the Cooper Union, The University of Pennsylvania and Maine College of Art & Design.

In 2022, Sprang was awarded both the Pew Fellowship and the Knight Foundation Art + Tech Fellowship for his work with one of two 4DSOUND systems in America. This system has been called, “the world’s most advanced sound system” as it allows for sonic holograms to be choreographed through space. James has exhibited at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Storm King Art Center, The Kitchen, Baryshnikov Arts, The Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design, The Public Theater, TATE Modern (UK), and MONOM (Germany), among many others. His work has been reviewed in publications such as ArtForum, Art in America and Art Papers. He is based in Philadelphia.

Dr. Nettrice R. Gaskins is an African American digital artist, academic, cultural critic and advocate of STEAM fields. Dr. Gaskins earned a BFA in Computer Graphics with Honors from Pratt Institute in 1992, an MFA in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1994, and a doctorate in Digital Media from Georgia Tech in 2014. She has taught creative AI, robotics, multimedia, visual art, and computer science to students from middle school to college.

Dr. Gaskins is an alum of the Ford Global Fellowship program and the assistant director of the Lesley STEAM Learning Lab at Lesley University. Her first full-length book, Techno-Vernacular Creativity and Innovation is available through The MIT Press.

Dr. Gaskins makes art using algorithms and machine learning. Her AI-generated artworks can be viewed in print, galleries, museums, and on the Web. Her series of ‘featured futurist’ portraits were on view at the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building from late 2021 through early July 2022. Her Greg Tate and Faith Ringgold portraits were installed as outdoor murals in Brooklyn, NY by the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art.

Gaskins served as Board President of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (The Alliance) and she was on the board of the Community Technology Centers Network (CTCNet) and Artisan’s Asylum.

John Pasmore is the founder and CEO of Latimer.AI, an Artificial Intelligence company built to be the premier Large Language Model focused on accurate historical information and bias-free interaction for Black and Brown audiences and anyone who values precision in their data.He recently served as a partner at the Family Office, TRS Capital and at Movita Organics, an organic supplement company led by filmmaker and social activist, Tonya Lewis Lee. John sits on the Board of Directors of Outward Bound USA. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from SUNY and a B.A. in Computer Science from Columbia University.

Nzinga Simmons, Summer 2025 Curatorial Fellow at More Art, is a curator and PhD candidate in Art History at Duke University, specializing in the work of Black contemporary artists engaging with new media. Her dissertation examines a select group of Black artists whose practices challenge the perceived neutrality of digital technologies, highlighting how these tools often reflect and perpetuate hegemonic ideologies. In contrast to the growing body of discourse critiquing the harmful effects of technology, Simmons’ research offers innovative perspectives on how marginalized communities can use emergent technologies to assert their agency both online and offline. Before pursuing graduate studies, Simmons held curatorial fellowship positions at the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Zuckerman Museum of Art in Kennesaw, Georgia.

Olivia M Ross is a Caribbean American information worker and documentarian from Queens, New York City. Her work practice in audiovisual and software preservation informs artistic research into the cybernetics of secrecy, power, and place. She is a death-doula-and-mathematician-in-training, as well as a teacher and student at the School for Poetic Computation. Current and previous collaborators include Performance Space NY, NEW INC, Rhizome, The Kitchen, Pioneer Works, BelleMoon Productions, and NEON. Her work has been featured in The Atlantic, Documentary Magazine, Letterboxd Journal, MUBI Notebook, Them, Refinery29, Bitch Media, and more. Ask her about Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.

Idris Brewster is the co-founder of Kinfolk Tech, a platform developing community-centered augmented reality experiences that surface Black and Brown histories in public space.

DJ Tara spins a collage of soulful sounds that captures an eclectic vibe. Her sets acknowledge the past while looking to the future and celebrating the now. In addition to performing at venues throughout New York City, Tara has two mix shows: misc. on The Lot Radio in Brooklyn and UpBeat on Soho Radio in London, blending music that is both new and old, familiar and unknown, across eras, genres, and continents. DJ Tara is supplying vibes for the opening reception of If We Don’t Who Will? on June 25.

If We Don’t, Who Will? is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Lambent Foundation, The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, Schmidt Sciences, LLC, and Future Histories Studio at Stony Brook University.

Technological development by DOTDOT Studio, with architectural design by LOT-EK, and fabrication by Chris Zirbes and Whitney Design & Fabrication. Mechanical design by J+M Engineering with structural consulting by Eytan Solomon / TYLin Group.

Site partners include the L10 Arts and Cultural Center, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Two Trees, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), Brooklyn Public Library, 651Arts, and Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).