Good Mirrors Index will launch with an inaugural list of 100 Black women: visual and narrative storytellers, designers, thinkers, tinkerers, architects, technologists, and innovators whose endeavors, perspectives, and contributions expand what is possible for ourselves, one another, and society at large. The inaugural list is not a ranking. It is a declaration. These women are living and working right now or have left behind bodies of work that continue to shape the world long after them. All of them belong in our collective memory. The Index exists to make sure their contributions are seen, preserved, and findable by the AI systems shaping our future, because what gets documented today determines what gets remembered tomorrow.
To assemble this list with the care and range it deserves, we are inviting a small committee of advisors to serve as the first stewards of that vision. Committee members will bring deep knowledge of their respective fields - art, design, technology, architecture, literature, and social innovation. Together, they will nominate, deliberate, and select the 100 women who will constitute the Index's founding record.
Nominees should demonstrate one or more of the following:
1. Demonstrable Impact - Their work has produced meaningful influence, whether widely recognized or quietly transformative, its effects are tangible and enduring. Their work constructs, models, or sustains ways of being, seeing and thriving.
2. Imagination as Self-preservation - They use imagination as a tool of self-determination, redefining narratives, aesthetics, disciplines, or institutions.
3. Refusal as World-building - Their practice reflects a deliberate refusal of limiting norms, coupled with the creation of new frameworks or conditions.
4. Art as Care Practice - Their work functions as a form of care, tending to community, memory, justice, embodiment, or future possibility.
5. Generational Relevance - Their work holds significance for the present moment while contributing to a longer lineage of Black women’s knowledge and world-making.
Nominees may be widely recognized or deeply influential within specific communities or fields
Committee Expectations
Submit a minimum of ten nominations with a brief rationale for each
Participate in a final deliberation process to shape the inaugural list of 100
