Art+Feminism User Group/Reporting/FinalReport2018-2019
This is the final report for the Art+Feminism 2018-2019 SAPG grant. A note on our approach to this report: we have tried to present high level summaries of the activities here, and link to more detailed reports on each topic.
Summary
editFor its sixth-annual Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, Art+Feminism exceeded all of our metrics goals: 311 events took place in 43 countries on all six inhabited continents and online. At least 4360 participants created or improved over 31,500 content pages (28,787 Wikipedia articles and Wikidata items, over 2800 images to Wikimedia Commons). Importantly, we expanded our focus to include non-binary folks and launched a large scale social media campaign advocating for an expansive understanding of gender. We saw significant growth in events in Asia and contributions to the Armenian language Wikipedia. Working with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, Art+Feminism became a non-profit entity, which will help secure our long term stability.
Activities
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Location of Art + Feminism events in 2019
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4,360 people attended 311 events around the world in 43 countries, which took place during the months of March and April. The goal of the Art+Feminism campaign is to bolster coverage of feminism, gender, and the arts on Wikipedia — as a response to the encyclopedia’s well-known content gaps.
Highlights of articles created and improved include Anni Albers, Winifred Hall Allen, Archivo Histórico del movimiento de lesbianas feministas de México, Mieke Bal, Deanna Bowen, Tania Bruguera, Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter, Elizabeth Catlett, Sarah Charlesworth, Sarah Charlesworth, Feminatywum, Rita Gonzales, Che Gossett, Barbara Hammer, Nancy Holt, Holly Lee, Luanne Martineau, Amara Moira, Haruko Okano, Judy Pfaff, Griselda Pollock, Gabriela Rodríguez, Leanne Simpson, and Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell.
This year, we saw a more than 300% increase in community across Facebook (86% growth) and Instagram (311% growth). We also made a major change to our communications and organizing strategy; launching the Gender and The Non-Binary campaign. The campaign facilitated greater growth and engagement among our digital communities due to the use of our hashtags #artandfeminism, #noweditingaf, and #beyondthebinary. Through the consistent use of the hashtag and our focus on engaging our online communities in conversation around their experiences related to gender equity, gender identity, women's rights, trans rights as human rights, and intersectional feminism we were able to amplify our messaging and reach.
The Museum of Modern Art Edit-a-thon kicked off with a live-streamed conversation between writer and archivist Che Gossett; performance artist, writer, and educator Alok Vaid-Menon; and Simone Browne, Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. The discussion was moderated by Danielle A. Jackson, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance, The Museum of Modern Art. Jackson framed the conversation by invoking Ralph Lemon and the concept of shakey elegance, the potential for beauty in the movements of trans bodies, queer bodies, and bodies of color to resist violence.
The MoMA Edit-a-thon also featured a Gallery Session on feminist art; a discussion of the forward-thinking teaching artists at MoMA via materials in the archives; a workshop on creating boundaries to combat implicit and explicit bias; and a teach-in on deleting and defending articles on Wikipedia. With the intention of making women artists and photographers of the African Diaspora more visible, The Black Lunch Table hosted their Wikimedia Photo Booth. Photographers Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Andrea Cauthen, and Kay Hickman took portraits of Abigail DeVille, Che Gossett, and Derrick Adams, amongst others, for upload to Wikimedia Commons. Communal editing tables were hosted by AFROcrowd, an organization that increases awareness of free culture movements among people of African descent, and POWarts, which champions the professional lives of women in the art world. Across the street, New York Public Library’s 53rd Street Branch hosted kid-friendly programming: Drag Queen Story Hour and offered a zine-making workshop, led by New York Tech Zine Fair, led by Ritu Ghiya and Neta Bomani.
Artexte in Montreal held to Art+Feminism events in 2019 with the double goal of recruiting new editors, with special attention given to individuals who are currently underrepresented in Wikipedia and improving the skillset of returning editors with training on Wikidata and Commons. Sixty-nine editors, including forty-one new editors, created or improved 171 articles, with a focus on content on the work of artists and authors who identify as female, or non-binary, people of colour and people from the LGBTQ+ community. To this end, Artexte librarians developed an extensive project page that points to strong reference material and sources. The November 9th edit-a-thon specifically highlighted the work of Indigenous artists and authors. Finally, at the second event, Artexte inaugurated a short Wikipedian in residency program with Camille Larivée, an Indigenous artist and curator. Larivée’s contributions focused on Indigenous people, people of colour and LGBTQ2S+ identified individuals. Furthermore, we invited guest speakers to both events for a participatory discussion that focused on issues surrounding representation in Wikipedia.
In Latin America, numerous cultural centres of the AECID Network participated in the campaign for the second consecutive year. In order to carry out the events, the Cultural Centres of Spain partnered with various Free Culture Organisations, International Human rRghts bodies, Wikimedians User Groups and independent Wikipedians. Likewise, as part of the activity in some venues, previous training events were held on Wikipedia editing, research techniques, free licenses, etc. Among the participating venues were the Casa del Soldado Cultural Center of Spain in association with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Panama, in Panama; the Juan Salazar Cultural Center of Spain, together with TEDIC and Amnesty International Paraguay, in Asunción; the Cultural Center of Spain in El Salvador; the Cultural Center of Spain in La Paz, together with Wikimedia Bolivia; the Cultural Centers of Spain in Cordoba, Rosario and Buenos Aires, Argentina, together with the User Group Latin American Women in Wikimedia; and the Cultural Center of Spain in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
This year, we focused intently on expanding our global team of ambassadors; welcoming 10 new ambassadors to our team. This meant the expansion of ambassador led events in new regions including Armenia, the Ivory Coast, Brazil, and Chandigarh.
To support all of this growth, Art+Feminism took on the significant work to become a non-profit entity this year.
Metrics
editDuring our 2019 campaign, we met or exceeded all of our metrics goals: 311 events took place n 43 countries on all six inhabited continents and online. At least 4360 participants created or improved over 31,500 content pages (28,787 Wikipedia articles and Wikidata items, over 2800 images to Wikimedia Commons). Remarkably, only about 1% of all articles were deleted. 1843 participants were new users who created their accounts in March. 35% of our 2018 organizers returned to hold events with us in 2019. Detailed outcomes from 2019 are on this wiki page and on our WMF Google Sheet. Our metrics goals for 2020 are predictions based off of our model which you can view in this google sheet.
Pledge Campaign
editWe re-implemented our two pledge campaign actions from 2017-2018. We held a pledge campaign in winter 2018-2019 to encourage people to pledge to hold events in March/April 2019. Our hope was that this would encourage organizers to plan ahead, and it would also help us identify a set of experienced event organizers who we would have to spend less time tracking. We were happy to see that 320 people pledged, of whom 177 held events. We observed an increase of 61% in the number of people who pledged and hosted in 2018-2019 than in the previous cycle. We also had a external facing pledge campaign focused on social media and directing people to a google form to give us information and pledge. We plan on using both of these mechanisms for the coming year.
Program and Events Dashboard
editThis year, organizers did not need to request Event Coordinator or Account Creator permissions! Instead *Dashboard* gave all permissions, via the User:OutreachDashboardBot account. The village pump discussion about Dashboard now giving permissions was concluded with consensus on 1/24/2019 with User:Ragesoss implementing and testing the account creation changes. More details can be found in the midpoint report here.
Finances
editOur 2018-2018 Spending Report can be found here.
We ended up with a -347.78 deficit which was paid for out of our independent fundraising.
This year marks the end of our work with fiscal sponsors, and we have been actively working towards setting up our own accounting, payroll, and payment systems.
Presentations and Resources
editPresentations and Conference Attendance
edit- Siân Evans, Jacqueline Mabey, Michael Mandiberg & Melissa Tamani co-authored “What We Talk About When We Talk About Community.” Wikipedia@20, edited by Joseph Reagle and Jackie Koerner. Cambridge: The MIT Press (in press).
- Jacqueline Mabey presented at Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London
- Jacqueline Mabey presented at Science & Feminism (STS-UY 3214), New York University, June 3
Material Resources
editWe have created a number of valuable resources, including:
- Diversity Audit
- UX/UI Review
- Organizer's Kit in English and Spanish and mobile versions
- Hiring learning pattern
- Hosting a multi site edit-a-thon learning pattern
- Creating a network of organizers learning pattern
- Ensuring your wiki project is inclusive learning pattern
- Conducting user experience research learning pattern
- Training Videos
- Logos and marks
- Brand Guide
- Beginner and intermediate training powerpoints
- How to organize an edit-a-thon lecture
- Wikidata Hackathon findings
- Call to Action Art Commision
- Art + Feminism Podcast
- Wikidata Work Plan
Translated materials:
- Quick guides to organizing and editing in Spanish and English
- New Training Slides - Portuguese
- Letter from our Director Mckensie Mack about this year's focus on gender non-binary stories - Spanish
- Safe Space/Brave Space Policy- Spanish and Catalan
- Call for 2019 participation- Spanish and French.
- Quick Guide for Editors and Quick Guide for Organizers to Portuguese and French. The layout of the texts is in progress. The new guides will be published as soon as this process is finished (around the end of November).
Next steps and opportunities
edit- Developing a Board of Directors and a formal structure as we build out Art+Feminism as a 501c3.
- Developing clear processes for communication with and between our Regional Ambassadors.
- Building an anti-harassment working group to help support global organizers in the face of repeated harassment.
- Creating and publishing more translated materials
- Creating an inventory of all Art+Feminism training and organizing materials and updating them as needed.
For more detailed information about our proposed plans for the 2019-2020 structure please see our 2019-2020 Grant Proposal
Grantee reflection
editWe are proud of the continued growth of our campaign this year. It's a major sign of sustainability that the project continues to grow as it has, and we're ready to continue to develop our community of organizers, editors, and allies globally now that we are a 501c3. With the hiring of our Executive Director and Project Administrator, we have increased capacity to build out our existing community of organizers and Regional Ambassadors. We're excited spend this year nurturing our existing community and building organizational capacity for the project's future stability.
We are also deeply grateful for the continuing support of the Wikimedia Foundation, and for the wisdom and guidance of Senior Program Officer Winifred Olliff.