Art + Feminism is an international project aimed at improving content on women and the arts on Wikipedia, and encouraging women’s participation in the encyclopaedia.
The project’s main event is an editing workshop – Edit-a-thon – that takes place over two days and brings people together to learn how to edit Wikipedia to create new articles and improve existing content on women and the arts.
This will mark the fifth year of the Art+Feminism project, which comes out of Brooklyn, NY. Blitz is organising and hosting an Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon March 8 to 10 as part of a global event coinciding with International Women’s Day.
The day’s activities will be led by a committee of experts and enthusiasts from across the cultural and education sectors, as well as highly experienced Wikipedians.
The Edit-a-thon is a fun, community-building event and no previous experience editing Wikipedia is required. People of all gender identities and expressions are invited to participate.
In a 2011 survey, the Wikimedia Foundation found that less than 10 per cent of its contributors identify as female. Art+Feminism’s Edit-a-thons aim to reduce this gender bias.
Since 2014, over 280 Art+Feminism Edit-a-thons have taken place across the world, creating and improving an estimated 4,600 articles. Expert Wikipedian Toni Sant will lead the edit-a-thons.
Sant is a digital curator and Wikipedia editor who has been active in the Global Wikimedia Movement since 2010. Between 2013 and 2015 he was the Education Organiser for Wikimedia UK, and one of the founding trustees of Wikimedia Community Malta.
He has engaged in Wikipedia conferences in the UK, USA and India and led and participated in numerous Wikipedia editing workshops in the UK, Czech Republic, Italy, and Malta, including Art + Feminism at Goldsmiths University of London, and others addressing the gender gap on the English-language Wikipedia.
Sant is currently also the Artistic Director of Spazju Kreattiv, Malta's national centre for creativity at St James Cavalier. The Malta edition of Art+Feminism is produced and presented by Blitz, and supported by French Embassy Malta. Art + Feminism is a collaboration with Wikimedia Community Malta and Spazju Kreattiv, through the project Wiki Loves Art.