Emerging Creative Leaders
Featuring Ananya Harshini, Henry Schroeder, and Swasti Solanki
F(r)ictions: Creative Work in an Age of AI {2026 symposium}
Once the day of panels wrapped, three students, Henry Schroeder (Lab Researcher), Swasti Solanki, and Ananya Harshini, sat down to talk through what struck them about F(r)ictions. All three were weeks from graduating, which means the warnings about job displacement and legal gaps raised throughout the day land differently for them. This is not a hypothetical they get to set aside.
So how do you build a career on ground that keeps shifting under you? Henry pushes back against the fatalism that so easily creeps into these conversations. Swasti and Ananya both wrestle with a harder question underneath the obvious one about job loss, not whether to use AI, but how to use it without losing something of yourself in the process. And Ananya raises a detail that most people in this conversation never stop to consider: that the rules governing this technology look nothing alike depending on where in the world you happen to be creating. What does it mean to build a creative practice inside a legal landscape that has not agreed on its own terms yet? Watch the video for their full reflections.
At: The New School, New York City
On: Friday, May 1, 2026
Sponsored by: The New School's Office of University Initiatives
Video Production: Tatiana Stolpovskaya
Selected Works
We investigate how AI transforms the conditions, politics, and value of creative work.
