Good Mirrors Institute harnesses the powers of narrative change and the arts to nurture the well-being of Black women and reflect them as they are: dignified human beings.
Everyone deserves a good mirror.
OUR THEORY OF CHANGE
If Black women have access to affirming narratives and arts-centered experiences for self-expression, their well-being will flourish - resulting in improved quality of life and extended life expectancy for them.
Creative self-expression through the arts is a life-sustaining practice.
Twenty-three percent of the 21 million Black women in the US suffer from anxiety.
We believe that engaging in the arts is a care practice for the mind, body and spirit. Research shows that self-expression through the arts can reduce anxiety and stress. Storytelling helps to give people a voice, reduce stigma, and build a sense of belonging with others.
We create arts-centered programs and experiences to uplift the emotional well-being and mental health of Black women.
See some of our work here.
We use storytelling and arts-centered experiences to create “mirrors” that undo the harm of race and gender-based stigmas and reflect Black women as they are: dignified human beings.
Good Mirrors Index
Launching Fall 2025, Good Mirrors Index is a digital encyclopedia and archive of Black femme consciousness that centers biographies and stories of notable and everyday Black women in order to combat algorithmic bias and elevate under-told narratives online.
This web platform seeks to impact data governance and algorithmic construction for discoverability of more “human stories” of Black women and expand the data that is used to train AI-powered systems on how to depict Black women on the internet.
(Good Mirrors Index is an evolution of our narrative change project TRUTH Portal. Supported by Mozilla Foundation, Meta Open Arts, and the New Museum.)
WITNESS Exhibition
Curated by GOOD MIRRORS Founder, Genel Ambrose and WACO Theater Center’s Artistic Director, Ms. Tina Knowles, WITNESS is a visual arts exhibition and national tour that poses the question: what do we witness when we see through the eyes of Black women?
Supported by Pivotal Ventures.
We are a collective of artists, storytellers, community-builders, and impact-minded cultural strategists catalyzing positive systemic change.
In the News
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‘Few people ask us what we think about ourselves’: This L.A. art show elevates Black women and nonbinary artists
Co-curated by GOOD MIRRORS Founder, Genel Ambrose and Tina Knowles, philanthropist and Artistic Director of the WACO Theater Center, WITNESS exhibition asks: What do we witness when we see through the eyes of Black women?
Read about it in the L.A. Times here.
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Tina Knowles and Genel Ambrose on Curating a Love Letter to Black Femme Artistry
WITNESS exhibition is an immersive visual art experience that features work by Black women and non-binary artists who project their vision of the world, society, community, and themselves through art.
Read ELLE Magazine’s review here.
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TRUTH Portal Challenges, Changes Algorithmic Bias Against Black Women
Mozilla Creative Media Awardee TRUTH Portal uses positive storytelling to address harmful online narratives about Black women.
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10 Projects Rethinking Data Stewardship: Announcing Mozilla’s 2022 Creative Media Awards
GOOD MIRRORS Founder, Genel Ambrose, is one of ten global recipients of Mozilla's 2022 Creative Media Award. The grant will be used to build TRUTH Portal, an interactive platform of stories of Black women, by Black women to combat systemic bias in artificial intelligence.
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Emerging Visionary Grant Partnership
In collaboration with SheaMoisture, GOOD MIRRORS created the Emerging Visionary Grant, a 50k opportunity for 10 Black women storytellers who use prose, poetry, and other forms of expression to expand the narratives of Black women and foster history-making change in their communities.