Talking Art: Stephanie Dinkins on Community, Collaboration, AI, and Care

Join us for Talking Art: Stephanie Dinkins on Community, Collaboration, AI, and Care on Thursday, March 19, from 6–7:30pm.

Launched in the fall of 2025, Stephanie Dinkins’s “Data Trust” reframes the relationship between community, technology, and the living world. Oral histories are encoded into large-scale, immersive generative AI projections, and contained within encapsulated okra and California black oak trees growing in genetically modified soil enriched with the encoded DNA. 

Join artist Stephanie Dinkins and guest curator Liz Thomas for this closing program in which Dinkins will discuss the development of her work, its engagement with artificial intelligence, and the collaborative process that brought together community members and partner organizations. Dinkins and Thomas will be joined by community collaborators, including: 

Artist Jessica Monette, whose interviews with her family contributed to the project’s multigenerational storytelling, and whose Root Me in the Soil, In the Wake and the Becoming is currently on display at the de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University (through June 13, 2026). 

Derek Bryant of We Start Gardens, an organization dedicated to urban agriculture, which helped bring the organic elements into the ICA’s installation.

Artist Esteban Garcia Bravo who worked with students at San José State University during summer 2025 through his Exhibition Fabrication class, where they collaborated on designing and building artworks, sculptures, and furniture with Stephanie Dinkins for “Data Trust.”

This program is free and open to all, and will continue with a group discussion and audience questions. Light refreshments will be provided. Space is limited.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Institute of Contemporary Art San José, 560 South 1st Street, San Jose, United States

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