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Alexandra Adcock. Community Outreach and Marketing Intern
Jul 08, 2020
Community Outreach and Marketing Intern Alexandra Adcock collaborated with her supervisor, Kellie Morgan Lutzko, and the Wex Student Engagement Group to implement the 2019 and 2020 Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thons at the Wex. Art+Feminism, as the grassroots collective explains on its website, "is an intersectional feminist non-profit organization that directly addresses the information gap about gender, feminism, and the arts on the internet.”
Below, Alex reflects on her experience, while also looking forward to the future of of Art+Feminism and highlighting the contributions and impact made by the Wikipedia editors who participated. She also shares an interview with Courtney Hunt, program collaborator and Ohio State Art & Design Librarian, about the connection of libraries in furthering the mission of Art+Feminism.
Through a 2011 survey, the Wikimedia Foundation discovered a distinct gender gap between Wikipedia contributors: 90 percent of contributors identify as male. Additionally, Wikipedia has fewer and less comprehensive articles about people of marginalized genders.
In 2014, Siân Evans, Jacqueline Mabey, Michael Mandiberg, and Laurel Ptak founded the organization Art+Feminism to address the information gap and biases related to gender, feminism, and the arts on Wikipedia. A+F supports DIY or “do-it-with-others” Wikipedia edit-a-thons worldwide, training and encouraging participants to create and improve the site’s articles collectively.
2019 poster designed by Malu Marzarotto, courtesy of the artist
Art institutions around the world participate in A+F edit-a-thons each year. In March 2019, the Wex Student Engagement Group collaborated with Ohio State’s Wikipedia student organization to learn how to edit and bring Art+Feminism’s initiative to the center.
Graphic included in an Art+Feminism editing presentation
From my own introduction to editing through Art+Feminism’s digital resources, I found that learning the ins and outs of Wikipedia can be both intimidating and confounding. After years of perusing the online encyclopedia in a cyclical stumble from one article to the next, I was surprised by just how casually I could contribute. And yet, most Wikipedia users don’t.
Wikipedia functions as an informational tool that anyone can use to add, correct, or expand the histories of artists (or really any other subjects) who are misrepresented or excluded—historically and institutionally. Continuously written and rewritten by thousands of editors, the site is fundamentally collaborative. And in emphasizing this collaboration, edit-a-thons create shared spaces for learning and critical discussion.
In March 2019, a group of Ohio State students, faculty, Wex staff and librarians gathered at Heirloom Cafe to learn how to edit and participate in our inaugural edit-a-thon. With books from the Fine Arts Library on hand, new and experienced editors improved articles about artists including Mickalene Thomas, Hito Steyerl, and Orly Cogan; feminist organizer Clara Fraser; and the Butterfly Music Transgender Chorus. Articles edited during the 2019 event have been viewed 447,000 times since.
2020 poster designed by Julia Jeffers, courtesy of the artist
The Wex hosted our most recent edit-a-thon on March 18, virtually due to coronavirus. Kellie, Courtney and I had previously organized a selection of artists, scholars, and community partners to host workshops and speak during our March event. While in person edit-a-thons are ideal for sharing research and conversation, editing and editing resources are just as accessible from home. We are looking forward to hosting an in-person event when it’s safe to do so.
Thinking about our new socially-distant way of life and its effects on initiatives like Art+Feminism, I spoke to Ohio State Art & Design Librarian and program collaborator Courtney Hunt. Here are excerpts from our conversation about the connection of libraries to Art+Feminism.
Wikipedia suffers from a gender gap. Is this true for library collections too?
The short answer is an emphatic yes. The longer answer is that it depends on the library, who’s buying for it, and the library’s focus. Libraries should be well-rounded. I make a concerted effort to buy materials related to women, BIPOC, and artists across the gender spectrum, but there will always be holes in the collection. I have control over what I select, but some of our materials come in on approval plans, which are exhibition catalogues selected for us, based on perimeters we set. That can be harder to control.
Many Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thons, and edit-a-thons in general, are hosted at libraries. Wikipedia is, currently, the third most used website in the world and a source for free, collaboratively written information. Libraries serve as an important physical space for research, reading, and gathering. Why do you think libraries are so important to events like Art+Feminism?
One of the founders of Art+Feminism is a librarian, Siân Evans. Libraries are such a used resource; libraries are where many of the research materials are, both physically and virtually. There's definitely a movement right now to make library collections more inclusive and be critical of “legacy” materials. We are the source material for what goes on Wikipedia. You can find anything on the internet, but having librarians involved helps guide people and gives access to the full expanse of information. Referring to physical books improves the quality of information on Wikipedia.
How do you think we can continue to strengthen Art+Feminism’s mission through library spaces and resources?
Art+Feminism does push us to make our collection more holistic and inclusive. By attempting to hold an edit-a-thon annually in our library, we want to make sure we have the resources to support editing. I think that there's a symbiotic relationship between libraries and improved, more robust research on Wikipedia. Art+Feminism is collaborative through talking in real time about the challenges of research and information—information that helps me purchase things that make the library better.
While we are currently limited from bringing people together physically, how do you see libraries becoming more digitally inclusive?
We have a ton of digital resources, which people don’t always realize are provided by the library. In the case of the pandemic, we very quickly shifted to promoting digital resources in a way that’s more direct and hopefully makes them easier to find. We are encouraging and helping people in our user group to accept the digital resources as a way to look at images and read books. Our exhibition catalogs are not available digitally and this speaks to a digital need. In the case of public libraries, they literally make digital resources more inclusive by offering computers, printers, and copiers to folks who may not have access at home.
Library collections have their own representation problems in terms of publishing, cataloging and metadata, and the use of outdated language that can make it difficult to find books in the collection. We are still working on making library collections really representative. The majority of artists in art library collections are still white, cis men.
Courtesy of Art+Feminism
My conversation with Courtney took place before the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter uprisings began in Columbus and nationally. Black Lives Matter. Please take time to learn and support through a collaborative resource from Art+Feminism. I also encourage you to learn about and support the organizations leading the movement in Columbus. They lead the list of "Ways You Can Help" on this page.
The Wex’s Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon is an initiative supported and conceptualized through the Community Outreach and Marketing department within the Wexner Center for the Arts in collaboration with members of the Wex Student Engagement Group, and our community partners; Student Life Multicultural Center, University Libraries, the Women’s Fund of Central Ohio, and the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Thank you to my supervisor and program organizer, Kellie Morgan Lutzko, collaborator Courtney Hunt, and to all partners for your collaboration and support of this program.
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