The Chemist Preserving The Met’s Art Collection

“Conservation started by looking at how to treat objects that have been damaged… Now we’re thinking about how to set up displays and storage so that kind of damage doesn’t happen in the first place,” Eric Breitung, a conservation scientist at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, says. Typically, if damage occurs, it’s the job of his staff to undo it. Instead of prepping the museum …

Model Ugbad Abdi is Among Those Changing the Face of Fashion

Teenager, Iowan, Somali, Muslim and talent agency-recruited runway model: Ugbad Abdi’s rise to stardom began just after her high-school graduation. One of NYC’s top agencies messaged her on Instagram, and months later she was walking in Valentino’s Paris show. She then walked for Burberry, Chanel, Fendi and Marc Jacobs; and appeared in Vogue’s April, August and September issues. She’s done so on her own terms: …

ImageNet Database Removes Images Contributing to Racist Bias

The inspiration for this week’s Image Net Roulette art installation, ImageNet operates as an online database of thousands of pictures, cataloged using 2,500+ tags. But, as this newfound popularity proved, the cataloging is steeped in systemic racism and bias. One tweet showed that no matter how many times a man uploaded his photo he was assigned “Black,” “Black African” or “Negroid”—when other options like “Doctor,” …