Scholars, artists, educators and others interested in improving the gender balance of Wikipedia entries on women and the arts are invited to participate in an edit-a-thon from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 7, in 207 Arts Cottage (Judy Chicago Suite) on the Penn State University Park campus.
The College of Arts and Architecture is hosting this satellite location as part of Art+Feminism’s edit-a-thon effort taking place during International Women’s Day weekend, March 7–8, in New York City. Launched in 2014, Art+Feminism is a campaign to improve coverage of women and the arts on Wikipedia, and to encourage female editorship.
In a 2011 survey, the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, found that less than 10 percent of its contributors identify as female. During Art+Feminism’s inaugural edit-a-thon in February 2014, approximately 600 participants contributed to the creation of 101 new articles while improving at least 90 articles. The event was covered in New York Magazine, ArtNews and numerous other media venues.
Karen Keifer-Boyd, professor of art education and women’s studies, is coordinating the Penn State edit-a-thon and has been involved in similar collective efforts to edit Wikipedia entries. According to Keifer-Boyd, participating in such an effort is empowering. “We invite the public to join us by adding articles and information about artists, feminist curatorial practices, feminist art pedagogy and other topics absent from Wikipedia. By doing so we are contributing to what artist Judy Chicago began in the 1970s with The Dinner Party and the curriculum encounters with The Dinner Party that are part of the Judy Chicago Art Education Collection at Penn State to make certain women and their contributions to culture are remembered and acknowledged.”
Other satellite edit-a-thons are scheduled to take place at universities and museums across the country and internationally, including locations in Amsterdam, Paris, Moscow, Brussels and Berlin. The Penn State edit-a-thon is sponsored by the College of Arts and Architecture and Wikimedia District of Columbia. For more information, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/State_College/ArtandFeminism_2015, or contact Karen Keifer-Boyd at kk-b@psu.edu or Leslie Sotomayor at lcz5008@psu.edu.