Good Mirrors is a cultural research studio. We are built on the conviction that the stories a community has access to about itself shape what it believes is possible.
Everyone deserves a good mirror.
We study the creative practices, intellectual traditions, and collective memory of Black women. We transmit these practices through art and ritual, and preserve them through technology - so the record endures.
Our work spans immersive exhibitions, living archives, and storytelling initiatives. Across it all, we approach art as a site of inquiry and memory as material.
We are building with collaborators - artists, scholars, institutions, and funders - who understand what is at stake in this moment. The historical record is being encoded into AI. What's absent from the archive becomes absent from the future.
Everyone deserves a good mirror.
Our Principles
-
![]()
Imagination as a tool for transformation
Creativity is how people expand what they believe is possible, for themselves and for each other. We design experiences that activate imagination as a social practice.
Artwork by: Aisha Shillingford
-
![]()
Belonging as fertile ground for flourishing
Humans do not thrive alone. We thrive in relationship, in circles of care, shared practice, and mutual witness. Our work cultivates the conditions for genuine belonging.
-
![]()
Story as the architecture of identity
The stories a community has access to about itself shape its potential. We build archives, exhibitions, and tools that expand that record, so communities can preserve and share their own histories on their own terms
Our Work
Good Mirrors Index
Good Mirrors Index is a living archive dedicated to Black women's legacy, history, and ways of being - documenting the lives, practices, and intellectual contributions of Black women.
The Index is also an intervention created to expand the data used to train AI systems ensuring that technology better reflects human stories, with greater depth and accuracy.
Supported by Mozilla Foundation, Meta Open Arts, and New Inc.
WITNESS Exhibition
WITNESS is a visual arts exhibition and national tour that asks: what do we see when we look through the eyes of Black women?
Co-curated with Tina Knowles and developed in partnership with Black Women Photographers, WITNESS traveled to Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Atlanta, engaging more than 7,000 visitors.
Supported by Pivotal Ventures.
TRUTH Portal
An interactive installation that collects and transmits audio-based stories of Black women, by Black women - combating algorithmic bias by expanding the narratives that shape how communities are represented online.
Supported by the Mozilla Creative Media Award.
Experience the portal online at TRUTHPortal.xyz
Mirror Work
Mirror Work is a collection of 31 bespoke affirmations created as a ritual of reflection, care, and return to self.
Exhibited within WITNESS and Kinfolk Tech’s KIN Festival, Mirror Work has found its home with women who inspire our work - among them Tina Campt, Ava DuVernay, Ruha Benjamin, Tina Knowles, Jasmine Wahi, Fe Noel, and Jannah and Kiyanna Handy of BLK MKT Vintage.
Our Work, In The World
-
‘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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
50,000 For Black Women Storytellers
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.