Black Lunch Table/user group report 2021

Black Lunch Table Wikimedians applied for user group status in December 2018 and were recognized by the WMF in January 2019. The following report documents the user group’s activities between January--December 2021.

This timeframe is identical to the receipt and granting period of a WMF Simple APG grant. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Simple/Applications/Black_Lunch_Table/2021

This period also intersects with the continued national and international crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and The Movement for Black Lives.

For full details about Black Lunch Table Wikimedians activities in 2021, our final APG report can be accessed at the following link: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Simple/Applications/Black_Lunch_Table/2021#Final_report

Project and User Group Descriptions

Black Lunch Table (BLT) is a nonprofit organization and seventeen-year ongoing artist collaboration. BLT’s primary aim has been the production of discursive sites, wherein cultural producers engage in dialogue on a variety of critical issues. Black Lunch Table Wikimedians mobilize the creation and improvement of a specific set of Wikipedia articles that pertain to the lives and works of Black artists. In the field of mainstream contemporary art, Black artists are still marginalized within our field. Wikipedia estimates that 77% of their editors are white and 91% of their editors are men. Our work shifts this demographic and empowers people to write their own history. Our sessions and events, including BLT Photobooth and edit-a-thons, equip new editors with the skills and resources to create, update, and improve Wikipedia articles and encourage existing editors to focus on Wikipedia knowledge gaps.

Summary

BLT’s 2021 Programming was initially imagined as programs that occurred online and were adapted as “pandemic programming”. The second half of 2021 was planned as a gradual return to pre-pandemic activities. Of course this was not to be. In general it is necessary to state, as we have all experienced, what an incredible challenge the pandemic has been to BLT and our team members.

During 2021, our Wikipedia project hosted 42 events, mostly online with a handful of low-risk events in person. These included ongoing partnerships with large arts institutions like MoMA and new ones with Pace Gallery, Creative Time and The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Walker Art Center, Weisman Art Museum, and The Minnesota Museum of American Art. Despite the challenges of multiple national crises we carried on and found innovation within our online programming. We noticed a general decline in desire and ability to participate in online programming overall, which we attribute to the ongoing nature of the pandemic and online fatigue across the board.

The programs we will be discussing in this report are:

BLT: Topic Focus and Online Edit-a-thons (online)
BLT:Live (online)
BLT Contests (online)
BLT: BLT (online)
Black Lunch Table Photobooth (in-person)
Black Lunch Table Proxy engagements (in-person)

Our metrics can be accessed here: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/campaigns/black_lunch_table_2021/programs

Our full calendar of events including meetup pages can be accessed here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Black_Lunch_Table/Event_Archive

Program Descriptions

BLT: Topic Focus and Online Edit-a-thons Online Wikipedia editing and assistance. Creates an opportunity for participants to ask questions, edit with other Wikimedians, be in community, etc. Topic Focus sessions feature experts on WikiEDU, editing on mobile devices, Wikidata, and Spanish language editing, etc. Events are open to all skill levels. Monthly online.
BLT: Live on IG Live A series of Instagram live artist “talks” that highlight the work and interests of individual Black artists. This program was devised as a way to direct money to artists as exhibitions and freelance work were canceled due to COVID. Monthly online and video archive of past events on Vimeo.
BLT BINGO is a monthly contest series that celebrates the work of artists by working to increase information about them on Wikimedia platforms and increasing editor's fluency with all Wiki platforms. “BLT Bingo Tips” is a campaign run on Twitter to support the awareness of the contest and artists. A new card and theme is released each month.
BLT: Bacon + Lettuce + Tomato BLT has always sought to provide a space for communion, affirmation, and discourse and has been the reason for our roundtable series. We recognize the extraordinary need for community spaces and see value in conversation as a space for catharsis and movement of communication and resources. Meet virtual neighbors! Bring a bag brunch to your computer, take that short commute to your couch.
Black Lunch Table Edit-a-thons, Proxy engagements, and BLT Photo Booth The core activity of the BLT Wikimedians user group has always been edit-a-thons. Black Lunch Table's central focus on Wikipedia is training editors, especially people of color and women, so that they may participate in the Movement and also asks the dominant editorship to focus on gaps in coverage on Wikimedia. After introducing editors to the Movement, BLT focuses on the creation and improvement of a specific set of Wikimedia documents that pertain to the lives and works of Black artists. We offer editors and community members an opportunity to engage in this work and learn through online and in person editing events. Recognizing that Wikipedia is not the only platform that lacks information about the lives of Black artists, the BLT Photo Booths increase images of Black artists on Wiki Commons. We host photographers and artists local to an event and upload the images taken during the event, thereby increasing the actual visibility of Black artists on Wiki Commons.

Challenges and Learning Points

As mentioned earlier, nearly all of our programming was forced to remain online in the second year of the pandemic. The adaptability of the edit-a-thon allowed our training and events to have a much greater reach. Institutions and organizations were eager to find ways to engage their audience virtually, and we were happily able to provide engaging and relevant programming. As a result of hosting 3+ hour-long events online, we are adapting our training and approaches to these events in a few ways. Importantly, we now do our best to establish a connection with participants in advance of events. Providing information about artists on our focus list and how to get a username. In our experience, this helps to create buy-in with participants. As they become curious about the Black artists we focus on and feel invested in learning Wikicode even before the event. The events where we have this connection result in more engaged participants who ask more questions and are more prepared.

The BLT Photo Booth, something that we often ran alongside our in-person edit-a-thons, really came into its own during the pandemic. As the summer rolled around in the northern USA and temperate temps continued in others our Photo Booth was our only event that was easily hosted outside and with necessary social distancing and COVID-19 measures. We now regard the Photo Booth as its very own programmatic lane. In 2021 it headlined our celebration for Juneteenth. We hosted events in a variety of cities documenting the breadth of Black artists across the country and improving Wiki Commons with images of Black artists. All of BLT’s Wikimedia Photo Booth contributions can be seen here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Black_Lunch_Table_portraits

Wikimania and Wiki North America Conference in-person cancellations were disappointing to growing our connection to other Wikimedians doing similar work and those that may desire to support the work we do and generally being connected to the larger community and movement. We did apply for participation in Wikimania with a session titled #Wiki Sees Black, detailing the importance of using different Wiki entities for equity and visibility and our unique approach to each, but was not an accepted submission. Unfortunately, we did not see many, if any sessions attending to these issues. With the social climate as it is, and at a time that the Foundation and Movement are working to be more inclusive and considerate of the known knowledge and diversity gaps, this critical issue was barely present in the preeminent international convening of Wikimedians. Alternately, we have been able to find a community with those Wikimedians and user groups who participated in WikiIndaba and are grateful that it is supported. We do hope that DEI concerns do not remain siloed within the movement.

Our regional proxy engagements continue to be an important part of our work. 2021 was BLT’s second engagement with Wa Na Wari, a center for Black art and culture in Seattle’s historically redlined Central District neighborhood. In 2020 we hosted two sessions of roundtables and an edit-a-thon. Happily, we returned via our proxy for an edit-a-thon in 2021. This year we also partnered with The Grocery Studios, a creative space that hosts occasional pop-up art exhibitions, workshops, lectures, music performances, and other creative activities. Our event hosted an intergenerational group of new and experienced Wikipedia editors working together for an afternoon. Wa Na Wari is on our programming schedule again for 2022 as a part of our annual Juneteenth celebrations during the summer. We look forward to cultivating sustained engagements such as this one with smaller organizations rooted in their local community.

The programming we offer, especially our Wikimedia workshops, acknowledges the varying levels of Wikipedia knowledge of our audience and attempts to funnel all those levels together towards more Wikimedia engagement and fluency.

It has been important to BLT to compensate artists during the pandemic. BLT: Live, where we invite artists to give a “talk” on IG live, has allowed us to direct $4,108 to twenty-one artists. Our Photo Booth project, where we hire photographers to take artist portraits and upload to Wikimedia Commons, directed $3,200 to four photographers. These programs were particularly successful as they paid artists, increased awareness of the project, added to the visual representation of artists online, and engaged new participants.