Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Centre A + Belkin Art Gallery 2024 Art & Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon (ID: 22382544)/Final Report
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 30 May 2024
Funding program: Rapid Fund
Report type: Final
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[edit]- Applicant username: Dianehywong
- Organization name: N/A
- Amount awarded: 4690.77
- Amount spent: 4593 USD, 6327
Part 1: Project and impact
[edit]1. Describe the implemented activities and results achieved. Additionally, share which approaches were most effective in supporting you to achieve the results. (required)
Over the course of our Art + Feminism event we collaborated with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery to host an array of introductory Wikipedia Edit-a-thon events where attendees were able to learn the do’s and don’ts of account creation, editing, and citing for the platform. Through working with a university gallery we were able to invite a university librarian to share their expertise on sourcing and citing for a database like Wikipedia, giving participants a heightened understanding of how to properly develop and create pages.
Additionally, we independently organized three Art + Feminism events. The first was a presentation by Dr. May Chew on counter-archiving as a practice of care and strategy of resistance. Through this talk we were able to expand upon how various networks of documentation or databases of knowledge are created in response to their exclusion and erasure from national or local records. As Art + Feminism similarly focuses on combating the uneven representation of female and gender non-conforming artists on Wikipedia, this talk expanded our understanding for how artists continue to make space for themselves amongst uneven power and representational balances.
Our second event, We Should Talk: An Art + Feminism Reading Group, similarly looked to gossip networks in the art world as a necessary mode of building solidarity and sharing knowledge amongst BIPOC arts practitioners. As arts institutions continue to uphold structures of white supremacy, the article “We Should Talk: Obvious Truths About Working in the Arts” by Marsya Maharani and Patrina Ng, looks to gossip networks to identify reverberating patterns of abuse. Through talking through these patterns, as well as identifying and sharing stories of our own experiences in Vancouver arts institutions, this reading group helped us to build more in depth and honest connections with our community members.
The final event of our Art + Feminism series was our in-person Wikipedia Edit-a-thon! Here, our library provided rich resources for participants to engage with in order to develop and find inspiration for the various pages they were creating and editing. In order to encourage community participation and retention, we also provided food and beverages throughout the duration of the event. Overall, this event was well-attended and participants were enthusiastic and engaged in the editing process. Centre A’s continued commitment to building strong community connections through providing opportunities and resources to our audience proves to be an effective way of retaining participants and building meaningful local relationships.
2. Documentation of your impact. Please use space below to share links that help tell your story, impact, and evaluation. (required)
Share links to:
- Project page on Meta-Wiki or any other Wikimedia project
- Dashboards and tools that you used to track contributions
- Some photos or videos from your event. Remember to share access.
You can also share links to:
- Important social media posts
- Surveys and their results
- Infographics and sound files
- Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects
Additionally, share the materials and resources that you used in the implementation of your project. (required)
For example:
- Training materials and guides
- Presentations and slides
- Work processes and plans
- Any other materials your team has created or adapted and can be shared with others
• Important social media posts
- Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects
3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with this Rapid Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals. Required. Select one option per question. (required)
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Strongly agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Strongly agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Strongly agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Strongly agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Strongly agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement | Strongly agree |
| F. Other (optional) |
Part 2: Learning
[edit]4. In your application, you outlined some learning questions. What did you learn from these learning questions when you implemented your project? How do you hope to use this learnings in the future? You can recall these learning questions below. (required)
You can recall these learning questions below: Engage with more diverse communities in Vancouver / enable cross-cultural solidarity through the sharing of stories. 1. How can Centre A better support and uplift diverse perspectives and communities in Vancouver? 2. What has prevented or limited this cross-cultural exchange in the past? To what extent has / can Art and Feminism events help build solidarity?
This year, community members are motivated to produce open-access research around BIPOC and feminist focused artist-run centers and grass-roots organizations in “Canada.”
1. How are these organizations supporting and uplifting underrepresented voices in the arts sphere? How can Wikipedia contribute to this movement to fill informational and institutional gaps?
2. To what extent have our previous workshops and edit-a-thons removed barriers for communities to access and contribute knowledge on Wikipedia?
3. How are our communities engaging with alternative methods of documentation and knowledge transference?
1. Desired Outcome:
Engage with more diverse communities in Vancouver / enable cross-cultural solidarity through the sharing of stories
Learning Questions:
i. How can Centre A better support and uplift diverse perspectives and communities in Vancouver?
ii.What has prevented or limited this cross-cultural exchange in the past? To what extent has / can Art and Feminism events help build solidarity?
2. Desired Outcome: This year, community members are motivated to produce open-access research around BIPOC and feminist focused artist-run centers and grass-roots organizations in Canada. Learning Questions: i. How are these organizations supporting and uplifting underrepresented voices in the arts sphere? How can Wikipedia contribute to this movement to fill informational and institutional gaps? ii. To what extent have our previous workshops and edit-a-thons removed barriers for communities to access and contribute knowledge on Wikipedia? iii. How are our communities engaging with alternative methods of documentation and knowledge transference?
A main learning outcome that emerged from this year’s iteration of our Art & Feminism project was how Centre A provides a space for community members to come together to have caring and critical conversations around the art world. As we encouraged community members to create and edit pages around BIPOC and feminist focused artist-run centers and grass-roots organizations in ‘Canada,’ we were also able to reflect on our own role in the community and invite event attendees to provide feedback and share experiences from within similar institutions. One of these events was organized as a reading group around the article “We Should Talk: Obvious Truths About Working in the Arts” by the curators Marsya Maharani and Petrina Ng. In this discussion with community members, fellow staff, and local cultural workers, we provided a space to openly discuss patterns of abuse and censorship that reverberate within the art world, as well as how gossip acts as a meaningful alternative route of knowledge sharing and community building. A main takeaway from this event was how important it is to not shy away from critical discourse, even when it concerns the runnings and pitfalls of our own gallery, but rather to embrace these discussions in an effort to be self-aware and transparent with our community members. In the future we hope to apply the outcomes of these discussions into tangible aspects of our institutional structuring, which we hope includes: more stable funding that can lead to better staff retention, as well as meaningful and community oriented exhibitions and learning opportunities, which we have already started to actualize through our SLOW Relations and Practices artist residency program and the second iteration of our Arts Writing Mentorship group.
Another main question that we asked going into this project was: to what extent have our previous workshops and edit-a-thons removed barriers for communities to access and contribute knowledge on Wikipedia? As we held our workshops both at Centre A and in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, we were able to provide meaningful knowledge surrounding how to edit, create citations, and navigate Wikipedia, thus allowing our attendees to access free resources and tools to help fill in informational and representational gaps on the database. On top of this, Centre A’s library introduced participants to information surrounding local, national, and international artists and artist movements that they may have been otherwise unfamiliar with. For example, our copy of the book A Rebel in Gaza: Behind the Lines of the Arab Spring, One Woman’s Story by Asmaa al-Ghoul and Selim Nassib inspired one of our attendees to create new pages for the authors. Our library continues to be a meaningful and free resource for community members and we are always looking for ways to expand our collection in a way that speaks directly to the interests and diverse perspectives of our audience. The Wikimedia Foundation allows us to both continue adding to and inviting community members to engage with this diverse collection of resources.
5. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities? This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences? (required)
One unexpected event that took place while implementing our Art + Feminism events was the timeline of our gallery renovation project. Our inspection with the city got pushed back twice, which meant that we were only able to start moving back into the gallery space one week before our in-person Wikipedia edit-a-thon. This was unexpected as we had initially planned to have a couple weeks to move back into the space, re-organize our library, and get settled ahead of this event. However, one positive aspect of this experience is that we were able to encourage volunteers to join us for both moving back into and organizing our library, as well as participating in the edit-a-thon that same week. As we went through our diverse collection of resources, this gave us the opportunity to single out and create a pile of research materials that could inspire community members to create and edit Wikipedia articles concerning specific movements, artists, and institutions, that are already part of our available collections.
6. What is your plan to share your project learnings and results with other community members? If you have already done it, describe how. (required)
We intend to share our project results and learnings through a community survey that will include questions that came up during our various programs. This way we will be able to gauge interest in this project from our audience, and see if the structural suggestions we have gathered are relevant to our specific locale. In addition, the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery intends to publish our shared statistics on their website, allowing our community members to see tangible information concerning the amount of pages edited, and the number of editors who contributed to this year’s iteration of the Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon.
Part 3: Metrics
[edit]7. Wikimedia Metrics results. (required)
In your application, you set some Wikimedia targets in numbers (Wikimedia metrics). In this section, you will describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used.
| Target | Results | Comments and tools used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 50 | 73 | |
| Number of editors | 20 | 44 | |
| Number of organizers | 6 | 6 |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 60 | ||
| Wikimedia Commons | |||
| Wikidata | |||
| Wiktionary | |||
| Wikisource | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | |||
| Translatewiki | |||
| MediaWiki | |||
| Wikiquote | |||
| Wikivoyage | |||
| Wikibooks | |||
| Wikiversity | |||
| Wikinews | |||
| Wikispecies | |||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
8. Other Metrics results.
In your proposal, you could also set Other Metrics targets. Please describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used if you set Other Metrics in your application.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New content contributions | 20 | 16 | ||
| New editors trained | 10 | |||
| Wikipedia Pages Updated | 60 | |||
9. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? (required)
No
9.1. Please state what difficulties you had. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges? (required)
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]10. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency. (required)
6327
11. Please state the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)
4593
12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
Provide the link to the financial report https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Leu0gSCu6lE-A9HOi18MhMrRFN2W0XCJXvAlqgkM_ts/edit?usp=sharing
12.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
Due to some unforeseen operational changes, we ended up having to spend more on the project manager honorarium than originally anticipated ($502 over the budget), to finish the project. In addition, no one requested childcare for any of the events so we reallocated that and Otter AI budget to cover some of the costs that ended up being higher than anticipated (Zoom and supplies and materials).
13. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
No
13.1. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
13.2. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
13.3. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
14.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
14.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
14.3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)
Review notes
[edit]Review notes from Program Officer:
N/A
Applicant's response to the review feedback.
N/A