Small AI Lab - shared practices for sustainable machine learning
workshopiterations-2025
How can we work with machine learning in ways that are ethical, local, and grounded in community care? In this two day lab, makers, artists, and researchers open up their practices around working with small datasets and small scale AI. Instead of thinking bigger, faster, and heavier, we explore what becomes possible when you choose to work small.
Programme
Day 1
13:00 - 15:00 With workshop Iván Paz
15:00 - 17:00 - Show & Tell by participants
Day 2
10:00 - 12:00 - Workshop with Computational Mama
12:00 - 13:00 - Collective Lunch
13:00 - 15:00 - Workshop With Lina Bautista
15:00 - 17:00 - Wrap-up and drinks
Day 1 takes the form of an open, meetup style session. Through shared presentations and conversations, you gain insight into how creative practitioners are developing sustainable and transparent approaches to machine learning. Ivan Paz, Lina Lab, and Computational Mama share their experiences, and there is space for others to contribute.
On day 2 the lab turns hands-on. Together we explore tools and methods that prioritise care, clarity, and creative autonomy over scale and extraction. You learn how small datasets function, what these approaches make possible, and what they deliberately choose not to do. We look at how artists and technologists are shaping responsible, community-based AI as an alternative to big tech infrastructures that extract from artists, from communities, and from the environment.
This lab is part of an ongoing conversation about building AI practices that are sovereign, sustainable, and shared. It is a community programme where everyone can take part. You join the full two days and only pay for lunch.