During Art+Feminism’s first campaign in 2014, Wikipedia articles about Senga Nengudi, Maren Hassinger, and Joan Semmel were among the many articles generated or improved that year. These three artists were doing notable work before 2014, but it’s because of you, our community, they are well represented on Wikipedia – the largest collaborative reference site in the world. While we can’t prove direct correlation, in the new MoMA rehang that opened this past Fall, all three of these phenomenal artists are on display in one gallery.

Since then, every March, from coffee shops and community centers to the largest museums and universities in the world, Art+Feminism leads a do-it-yourself and do-it-with-others campaign that teaches people of all gender identities and expressions to edit Wikipedia. We envision dismantling supremacist systems and creating pathways for everyone to participate in writing (and righting) history. We collectively create and update articles on Wikipedia, add images to Wikimedia Commons, expand WikiData entries, and more with our growing global community.

Today, I write with enthusiasm to share our 2020 Campaign theme: Art+Activism.

Activism is something that is deeply rooted in the fiber of this organization. Art has long been a vehicle to reflect and urge social, political and cultural change. Just like the word “feminism” can have different meanings to the individual, “activism” can as well. We welcome all interpretations, wide and narrow, of Art+Activism to be part of our 2020 campaign.

We invite you to be part of our seventh year—our first as an official non-profit—as we continue to address the gaps in information and within the editing community of the Wikiverse to center the work of women, feminist, BIPOC, queer, non-binary, and immigrant art and artists.

Join us at Wikipedia Deutschland, Tempelhofer Ufer or University of Santiago de Cali or MoMA or the hundreds of events around the world (more are being added each week!) Don’t see one in your area? Organize one. We have quick guides, training tools, and a team of regional ambassadors around the world, ready to support new organizers today.

Activist art is a term defined as art that is grounded in the act of ‘doing’ – let’s get to doing!

 

Onward,

Kira Wisniewski

Executive Director, Art+Feminism

she/her

 

Image: Photograph by Jason Krüger for Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)].