Ecosystem Notes: Black Culture, Black Futures, and a Fight for Our Lives
Sliding into LxC summer break on a WOBD III high
Welcome to Ecosystem Notes, where we share updates on what is happening across LifexCode labs, projects, and members! If you like what you see, please support LifexCode by sharing this newsletter, attending events, or just dropping a note in the comments!
Who Owns Black Data III Joins Amistad Research Center in a Fight for the Black Future
The Who Owns Black Data team joined the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans for three days of research, community, and deep culture.
Congratulations to the Amistad Research Center on a stunning public event with keynote conversationalists Andrea Armstrong, Jo Banner, and Gia Hamilton, moderated by the brilliant Shennette Garrett-Scott, and performances from Sha'Condria "iCon” Sibley, Cassandra Watson, Knockaz Brass Band, and the GoldenFeather Mardi Gras Indians.
Over sixty participants from around the world joined working sessions drafting ethical guidelines for digital Black research centers of the present and the future—and yes, AI was a topic of conversation!
Thank you to all of our sponsors and supporters, especially the Black Beyond Data Ecosystem, the Diaspora Solidarities Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Johns Hopkins University Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, JHU Sheridan Libraries, Tulane University, Loyola University of New Orleans, Create that Party, O’Imagination, Blanco Studios, Oritri Catering, Xavier University of Louisiana, Elysian Catering, and all of our guests and participants. More recaps from WOBD III to come.
If you want to learn more, WOBD IV is headed to Puerto Rico in 2027! Stay tuned!
Nadejda Webb at A Sea of Islands Symposium (June 10-11, 2026)
This June, find Dr. Nadejda Webb (LxC Guide, WOBD, We Live Language Lab) presenting at Centro’s A Sea of Islands Symposium:
These islands were never meant to find each other. But they did, and they do. 🌊
This June, CENTRO is bringing together scholars, artists, and activists from across the U.S. territories and their diasporas for a landmark 2-day symposium, A Sea of Islands: U.S. Territories in Relation.
For over a century, federal legislation, judicial decisions, and colonial power have shaped the lives of millions living under U.S. territorial rule, from Puerto Rico to Guam to the U.S. Virgin Islands and beyond. Fiscal crises. Mass outmigration. Climate disasters. The questions of sovereignty, justice, and freedom have never been more urgent.
Come learn, connect, and build with us. Sessions cover: Art, cinema & curatorial practices, Territorial peoples & the law, Relational decolonial ecologies, Militarization & resistance, Archival & preservation practices, and a Documentary film screening.
📅 June 10–11, 2026 📍CENTRO, 2180 3rd Ave, New York City 🎟️ FREE RSVP
AI Literacy Showcases Critical Work by Youth in Providence
Shout out to Dr. Kim Gallon (LxC Guide, Community Health Informatics Data Lab, Black Beyond Data Co-PI) on bringing critical media literacy skills to young artists in Providence, RI!! These artists brought their critical thinking skills and imagination to bear on what it means to challenge, critique, and disrupt Ai.
In the News: Underwriting Souls, a Requiem
“The libretto of Atlantic Requiem, which will be performed for the first time this autumn by the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC singers, has been drawn jointly from the text of the Catholic requiem mass, from documents held in Lloyd’s own archive and from American legal testimony from 1791….
“The new requiem was written by Manchester-based composer David Önaç using parts of the traditional requiem mass as a way to pay his respect to lost enslaved souls. It also to reflect the compromised role of Christianity in the history of enslavement, through its religious conversion of Indigenous people and the use of biblical texts to justify slavery.”
Read the rest.
LifexCode is on Break!
LifexCode (and Ecosystem Notes) will pause for the rest of June, but look for us after July 5 and keep up with our summer lab and research season. Thank you for all you do to make this ecosystem thrive! See you soon!
If you’re a part of the ecosystem and have a note you want shared, drop us a line at admin@lifexcode.org!!! See you next week!
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