Grants:Project/Rapid/Kolektyw Kariatyda/Postcolonial Female Artists edit-a-thon - Art+Feminism 2021/Report

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Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

We are delighted with the outcome of the postcolonial edit-a-thon; we feel that we have met our assumed goals for this project. With the edit-a-thon, we aimed to bring postcolonial female artists to Polish Wikipedia, and we think that we have fulfilled our mission because more than 20 articles have been created until now. This project is a solid foundation for future activities. We certainly believe that the material we have gathered and the literature that we purchased will allow us to organize more postcolonial edit-a-thons in the future.

It is also vital to mention that we have organized an online lecture dedicated to postcolonial art presented by Dr Barbara Śliwińska and simultaneously translated into Polish Sign Language (PJM) by Magdalena Gach. The lecture in its entirety was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, and we have already gathered feedback that researchers use the lecture.

The project also enabled us to get in touch and collaborate with Departament Obecności (Department of Presence), which is a group working within the Museum of Modern Art (MSN) in Warsaw. Bogna and Jakub, who are a core of this initiative, provided us with an abundance of source materials and promoted our project on their social media platforms, as well as on MSN’s social media.

Our presumed goals, as stated in the grant application, were to:

1. Recruit new editors - our project resulted in recruiting 15 new editors, 12 of which are students of anthropological and ethnographic studies at the University of Wrocław

2. Increase skills for existing editors - among the participants were also existing editors, some of them very experienced. This edit-a-thon helped us, as Caryatid Collective, improve our skills, because we could broaden our horizons (as our work on Wikipedia is dedicated mainly to Polish women of art) and expand knowledge on female artists that have not yet been covered on Polish Wikipedia

3. Add or improve content - edit-a-thon resulted in creating 24 new articles and improving 1 article.

4. Increase the visibility of postcolonial female artists in Polish Wikipedia - because of new articles created during the edit-a-thon, we firmly believe that we were able to increase the visibility of postcolonial female artists in Polish Wikipedia. Not only did we make new articles, but we also created two new categories: Postkolonializm (Postcolonialism) and Sztuka postkolonialna (Postcolonial art).

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Number of events: 1	1	We wanted to organize one edit-a-thon and one lecture on the subject of postcolonial art. We met our goal.
Number of participants: max. 20	24	The number of participants exceeded our initial expectations. Students of anthropological and ethnographic studies at the University of Wrocław, enrolled into the EtnoWiki initiative by one of our members, participated in the edit-a-thon as well, which increased the overall number of participants.
Number of new editors: max. 10	15	The number of new editors exceeded our initial expectations. Among new editors, the vast majority (12) were students of anthropological and ethnographic studies at the University of Wrocław, who worked within the frameworks of EtnoWiki initiative. Because of this project, they were encouraged to start editing Wikipedia
Number of articles created or improved: max. 20	25 (24 new + 1 improved)	The number of created or improved articles exceeded our expectations. There have been 25 articles created, among which 24 are brand new biographical entries, and one is an improvement of an already existing article

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

• What worked well?

What certainly worked well was the collaboration between different parties engaged in this project. We have established contact with Departament Obecności - an initiative created within the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN). They very kindly provided us with a portion of literature, which was later translated into Polish and used as a basis for the articles. They also supported us promotion-wise, as they promoted our edit-a-thon on their and MSN’s social media platforms. We also became acquainted with dr Barbara Sliwinska - a scholar based in England who agreed to lecture on postcolonial artistic practices, which was extremely valuable and enlightening. The lecture was translated into Polish Sign Language (PJM) by Magdalena Gach, increasing our activities' inclusivity.

• What did not work so well?
• What would you do differently next time?

We would undoubtedly submit our grant application earlier on - in this instance, there was a small window of time between grant application and the start of the project, which was quite stressful. Because of that small window of time, total funding was also transferred to our bank account after the edit-a-thon itself, which meant that we had to find the financing of take-away meals from different sources and then return it. We would also like to mention that it would be great if there will be a possibility to cover the cost of the lecturer from the grant. Dr. Sliwinska very kindly prepared the lecture for free. Still, we know that doing that is both time and energy-consuming, so we would be very grateful if it would be possible to include the salary of a lecturer into the grant budget in future projects. After all, Dr. Śliwinska’s lecture is also precious content that was uploaded on Wikipedia.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Out of the total amount of 7050 PLN we spent 6338,97 PLN. Our expenses are divided into individual categories:

• We planned on spending 700 PLN on source materials and literature. Ultimately, we spent 656,51 PLN, which means that there is 43,49 PLN left in that category. We will also use these books as source materials during the next edit-a-thons dedicated to postcolonial female artists that we want to organize in the future.
• We planned on spending 1000 PLN on translations of the content (articles, books with biographies about the given postcolonial female artists) for entries in Polish. Ultimately we spent 1000 PLN.
• We planned on spending 1000 PLN on take-away meals for participants (max. 20 participants x 50 PLN). Ultimately we spent 824,79 PLN, which means that there is 175,21 PLN left in that category.
• We planned on spending 500 PLN on sign language translation of the lecture. Ultimately we spent 500 PLN.
• We planned on spending 350 PLN on promotional campaigns (e.g., Facebook and Instagram ads). Ultimately we spent 357,67 PLN on Facebook ads; therefore, we exceeded our budget in that category by 7,67 PLN. We would like to cover that extra sum of 7,67 PLN from other sources, such as promotional prints (500 PLN left) or literature (43,49 PLN left). Would that be possible?
• We planned on spending 500 PLN on promotional prints (e.g., stickers for the participants). Ultimately we spent 0 PLN in that category. We decided that materials made by the graphic designer would suffice, and it is a much safer approach during the pandemic. Furthermore, the delivery of physical prints during the pandemic is challenging.
• We planned on spending 1000 PLN on graphic design. Ultimately we spent 1000 PLN.
• We planned on spending 1000 PLN on promotional volunteer. Ultimately we spent 1000 PLN.
• We planned on spending 1000 PLN on video editing volunteer. Ultimately we spent 1000 PLN.

Financial details on how we spent the grant funds can be found on separate Google Drive folder, a link to which will be sent to Rapid Grants email address. There you can find documentation and an excel sheet with all the calculations of the funds that were spent during the project.

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

Remaining funds are retained by the grantee with WMF's permission until after the report review has been completed and report has been accepted, at which time the WMF program officer will also provide instructions regarding the grantee's reallocation or return of the unspent grant funds.

In total we have 711,03 PLN in unused funds. If that would be possible, we would like to keep 100 PLN of that sum on our bank account maintenance (fees etc.). The remaining 611,03 PLN we will return to WMF.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

The results of the edit-a-thon can be seen on our dedicated Wikiproject page: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiprojekt:GLAM/Kolektyw_Kariatyda/Wydarzenia#15._Edyton_-_POSTKOLONIALNE_–_20_marca_2021 - it is entirely in Polish, but you can see different sections dedicated to various aspects of the project, e.g. “Dodano w Wikipedii nowe kategorie” means “New categories created in Wikipedia”; “Dodano nowe artykuły” stands for “Created articles”; “Edytowane artykuły” is “Improved articles”. Below you can see a list of people who participated. Separate sections are dedicated to articles created by students within the EtnoWiki program. Hence, you can see the list of participants and articles created by them under “Nowe artykuły wprowadzone ze studentami EtnoWiki”.

On a separate subpage https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiprojekt:GLAM/Kolektyw_Kariatyda/Mediateka you can watch the lecture on postcolonial artistic practices, which was carried by dr Barbara Śliwińska and translated simultaneously into Polish Sign Language (PJM) by Magdalena Gach. The description is in the first subsection; on the right is the thumbnail of the lecture itself. All of the visual references used in the lecture are under Open Access, which is an added value. We’ve already gathered feedback that this lecture serves as a useful source on postcolonial art.

Created articles have been introduced over the course of a few weeks as regular posts on Caryatid Collective’s Facebook page and Instagram page. This way, we were able to popularize the outcomes of this project and introduce people to biographical entries of postcolonial female artists.