Event:VisibleWikiWomen 2025
.png)
Introduction
[edit]“Everything worthwhile is done with other people”- Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes (Let this Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution for Reciprocal Care.)
2025 marks the 8th year and edition of the #VisibleWikiWomen campaign.
For the past seven years, we’ve brought together a collective of partners and friends worldwide to make images of womxn, especially black, brown, indigenous, trans, and non-binary individuals, available on Wikipedia and the broader internet. We are proud and grateful for the thousands of images the campaign has brought online and all the events, reflections, and interventions we have done through #VisibleWikiWomxn.
Theme of the Year
[edit]It Takes a Village! Finding, Strengthening, and Sustaining Feminist Community
[edit]Every year, we sit together and discuss the spirit for our annual #VisibleWikiWomen campaign. We have tried many variations, from prompts to our team, brainstorming sessions, requesting our community of partners to share reflections, and many conversations. The result is always an overarching theme, steeped in feminist theory and practice, shared with the world to join our campaign. It is always a pleasure to see our work mirror back to us the collective contributions of our friends, allies, and partners over the 8 years we have done this campaign. And this year, although a little later than usual, is no different, but a little more special: we want to make visible not only the faces of individuals, but more intentionally, highlight the feminist connections and communities that sustain life and radical work.
In almost every culture, at least the ones we know and come from, there is a version of the proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.” We would like to adapt it to “It takes a village to survive in times of polycrisis.” Community keeps us safe, keeps us grounded, and keeps us accountable. We are held by the laughter of our children, the support of strangers, the solidarity of our feminist siblings across the globe, the inside jokes of our friends/comrades, and the hugs of our loved ones; We are reminded that our humanity is not defined by just the crises we face. That we can hold each other with love and still organize towards our collective freedom.
.png)
Dismantling communities has been – and continues to be – one of the most effective tactics of colonisation. From land privatization to resource extraction, from militarization of territories to state-sanctioned violence(s) and anti-rights laws, from enclosure of digital commons to the commodification of our relationships by big tech, we witness everyday how colonial-capitalism threatens our communities, especially those of us on the margins of power–non-white, women, migrants, LGBTQI+ folks, sex workers, the working class, etc.
And yet, community remains our source of home, connection, and movement building.
We look towards and lean on each other as the ecosystems for our sustenance. Community is the essential system of support for the majority of the world: from caring for the soil in which we grow our food, to raising funding to keep our collective struggles afloat.
We sit with the contradictions of technology (and the internet), both as a harmful superstructure and a place where many of us have found our communities.
We draw our inspiration from many examples across the globe, such as;
- LGBTIQ+ folks everywhere, who have reclaimed access to housing through opening and sustaining shelters, opening up their homes to each other, or even buying and managing their hotels.
- Our own liberatory archives and memory workers that create and sustain our community archives from erasure.
- The communities of Indigenous women and territory defenders that collectively continue to protect each other, their children, and their land.
- Feminist and activist communities online that are created and sustained by solidarity beyond colonial national borders, including feminist Wikipedians, whose work nourishes our knowledge justice work.
- Communities of artists (writers, poets, designers, painters, zine-makers, gardeners, etc), who create and curate for us the revolution in ways that speak our souls’ language.
- Women community builders who, amid genocide and displacement, resist patriarchy and colonization, from Palestine, to Sudan, to Congo, to Haiti, and beyond.
- Migrant workers and their families and communities everywhere who build the pillars of our economies and support and enrich societies across borders.
.png)
The clarion call with our theme this year is to remain deeply committed to our feminist communities and community building as an antidote to the regression and threats facing our lives and work.
Our resistance is staying connected to one another, relishing in each other’s joy, and holding space for the plurality of our emotions in this moment.
We invite our partners, allies, friends, and comrades in the revolution for our collective freedom to join the 2025 #VisibleWikiWomxn campaign by sharing images of yourself, your community (with consent), community activities, communities we should support, communities we should remember, and communities we should celebrate.
We also invite you to share with us what community means to you at this moment.
Our goal for 2025
[edit]Our goal for this 8th edition of #VisibleWikiWomen is to bring 3000 images of women and non-binary individuals to Wikimedia Commons, the big multimedia library for all Wikimedia projects, including the +300 language versions of Wikipedia.
Once again, we will be focusing on increasing the number of images of Black, Brown, Indigenous, Trans women and Non-Binary people that are being uploaded to Wikipedia as part of the #VisibleWikiWomxn campaign.
To reach this goal, we invite you, women’s and feminist organizations, culture and memory institutions, Wikipedia editors, user groups, chapters, and anyone who would like to give the plurality of women and non-binary people the visibility and acknowledgement they deserve. We are excited to collaborate with previous years’ friends, allies, and co-conspirators again as we welcome new partners from around the world.
Key moments of 2025
[edit]#VisibleWikiWomen is now a yearly campaign, but certain celebrations and commemorations of the year can work as special moments to engage. We want to highlight the following key moments for our communities throughout the year:
- June: LGBTQIA+ Pride Month
- 10 August: Prisoners’ Justice Day
- 5 September: International Indigenous Women's Day
- 28 September: International Safe Abortion Day
- October: Black History Month [UK, Ireland, The Netherlands]
- 25 November to 10 December: 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence
- And more…
How to participate
[edit]You can join the #VisibleWikiWomen campaign all year long by gathering and uploading quality images in the public domain or under free license to Wikimedia Commons under the VisibleWikiWomen category. These images can be photographs or drawings of women, as well as images of their work, with proper consent.
Besides uploading images to Commons, you can also participate in the campaign by:
- Hosting or attending local events in your communities, where photos can be taken or uploaded
- Releasing your existing photos of women and nonbinary people under free licenses
- Creating illustrations and drawings
- Promoting and publicizing the campaign by spreading the word about it and using the hashtags #VisibleWikiWomen, #VisibleWikiWomxn, #FeministCommunity on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
- Co-organizing and hosting an online event with Whose Knowledge? to bring the campaign to your local communities
- Creating a feminist corner at your public events by installing a #VisibleWikiWomen photobooth.
And probably so much more! We’d love to see you come up with new ideas that make sense for you and your communities.
If you need extra support for participating in the campaign, please email us at visiblewikiwomen[at]whoseknowledge[dot]org.