Award 26: Coded Out

Black women make up less than 0.7% of the UK tech workforce. Artist Michi Masumi is here to change that, raise visibility, demand equity and create opportunities through research, activism and design.

Michi created a silent walking artwork. Wearing her art which was generated with A.I Michi held silent protests across London at the sites of recruitment and strategic network events in the tech industry.

Michi says she "aims to raise awareness of employment discrimination and systemic social injustice, and to actively contribute to meaningful social change. To expose the systemic erasure of Black British women from AI development and tech decision-making. This is not a duplicate statistic, but an intentional visual intervention to make this number unignorable. With only 0.7% of the UK IT workforce being Black women, I use my body as data, my clothing as a binary protest, and my presence as resistance. The Labour 2025 AI Action Plan fails to address this exclusion. My protest is a symbolic, embodied critique: visible, silent, alone."

You can read lots more about the project on the Black Arts Hub here.

Follow her on @michimasumiphotography