Black Lunch Table/user group report 2023

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 2023.

This timeframe is identical to the receipt and first year of a WMF Multi Year Community Fund Grant 2022-2024. This period also intersects with the continued national and international COVID-19 pandemic.

PROJECT AND USER GROUP DESCRIPTIONS

Black Lunch Table’s (BLT) primary aim is the production of discursive sites, wherein artists and local community members engage in dialogue on a variety of critical issues. BLT mobilizes a democratic rewriting of contemporary cultural history by animating discourse around and among the people living it. BLT was founded in 2005 and became a 501c3 non profit organization in 2019.

The Wikimedia Foundation estimates that 77% of Wiki editors are white and 91% are men. Our work shifts this demographic and empowers people to write their own history. Our sessions and events, including edit-a-thons, BLT Bingo Contests, BLT Live, and monthly office hours, 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 2023 programming was our first year since 2020 and receipt of this grant where our major programming was realized in person. The adaptations that were made to accommodate the world’s turn to online engagement are still being adjusted to the hybrid circumstances we find ourselves in.

During 2023, BLT hosted 10 joint programming events, 10 monthly office hours events, and bi-monthly contests. This year’s events included partnerships with Pratt Institute, Stove Works, Art + Feminism, and a series of events and an exhibition around our inaugural partnership with Pace Gallery.

BLT’s Wikimedia initiative includes a variety of programs that happen on and offline. These have continued to be adapted as needed throughout the pandemic and currently include the following, descriptions and discussion below.

Wikimedia Fellow
BLT:Office Hours (online)
BLT:Live (online)
BLT BINGO (online)
Black Lunch Table Edit-a-thons (in-person)
Black Lunch Table Photobooth (in-person)
Black Lunch Table Proxy engagements (in-person)

Our metrics can be accessed HERE

Our full calendar of events including meetup pages can be accessed HERE

PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS

Wikimedia Fellow The Wikimedia Fellow will work on site at Pace Gallery New York and remotely with Black Lunch Table to improve the presence of artist’s biographies and related topics on multiple Wikimedia platforms. The Wikimedia Fellow will have access to Pace’s library and archive holdings during the year fellowship in order to improve existing Wikipedia articles by adding context and references and creating new pages on notable topics and artists.The fellowship will conclude with a related archival exhibition related to the work completed during the term.

BLT: Office Hours 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. As scheduled.

BLT BINGO is a bi-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 every two months with a summer vacation.

Black Lunch Table Edit-a-thons, Proxy engagements, and BLT Photobooth 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 Wikicommons. 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 Wikicommons.

CHALLENGES, SUCCESSES, AND LEARNING POINTS

As we closed 2022 and entered into 2023 we were engaged in our most exciting programming partnership with Pace Gallery. What began in 2021 as a collaboration on a Juneteenth Photo Booth has become a more robust partnership hosting our inaugural Wikimedia Fellow.

Our fellow, Kristen J. Owens, is a librarian, curator, and arts educator whose interdisciplinary research, writing, and curatorial work is situated in African American and Black Diasporic studies. She is currently Librarian for African American and Black Diaspora Studies at New York University Libraries.

Owens focused on a text by Carolyn Fowler Black Arts and Black Aesthetics: A Bibliography (1981) as a central piece of her project. For the fellowship, Owens crafted her own Black bibliography as it relates to artists exhibited or connected to Pace Gallery in their sixty year history. The fellowship culminated in an exhibition at Pace Gallery in February 2023 titled Black Arts and Black Aesthetics. Owens’ project on Black bibliography is critical to advancing the work of documenting and disseminating information about artists.

It is a central concern of Black Lunch Table Wikimedians to address the under documented artists and cultural workers on Wikipedia. Owens’ work not only draws attention to the sources of knowledge around these artists but creates a resource that can be utilized by anyone to improve the articles and information about these artists on Wikipedia.

BLT’s engagement in The Movement itself increased in 2023. In August our Wiki assistant, Kearra Gopee, traveled to Singapore for Wikimania 2023 to present Black Lunch Table: Pedagogy and Programming from 2019-present. It proved important to strengthen the connections to other affiliates in the movement and broadening the awareness of BLT’s work.

We are looking forward to participating in the Wikimedia Summit 2024 in Berlin and speaking up for what we see as critical issues around the Charter and governance in The Movement.

Relatedly, 2023 allowed us to support others in the movement getting their start. Wiki Luanda is a group just beginning their Wiki journey out of Angola. Focused on building a community and the importance of growing the presence of Portuguese-speaking African countries, we were pleased to be able to support them as they received their first WMF grant and hosted their first events. You can read more about their efforts HERE.

We continued making adaptations to our programming as we moved through the Pandemic. We found that changes that were right for year one and two of the pandemic faltered at times as we entered a new phase. Although lessened there was still a need for precautions. BLT Photo Booth remains a popular program and one that transcends the limitations of social distancing and riskier in-person programming. We were able to host five Photo Booths during the year. The photo booth is an initiative that we will continue to host with the goal of formalizing the way that others can contribute to the collection of Black Lunch Table portraits and to Wikimedia Commons.

Internally, 2023 continued a transition begun for our organization in 2022. At that time BLT founder’s Heather Hart and jina valentine stepped away from the project as co-executive directors and joined the BLT board in 2023. BLT went through an extensive national search for a new executive director. Hired in October 2022, this individual was unfortunately unable to fulfill the job responsibilities as needed. In July 2023 BLT named Viva Yeboah as its Interim Executive Director.