theheritagelab.in

Hi!

From the team of the Heritage Lab and Art+Feminism India 2019, I welcome you on board! We were really excited to read about your passion for the project and are glad to take you on as a volunteer. This email will be an orientation of sorts- I’ll guide you through the campaign, your role and what we’re hoping to achieve together.

What is Art+Feminism?

Art+Feminism is an international campaign to improve content on women in the arts on Wikipedia and increase female editorship of the platform. It is largely a do-it-yourself and do-it-with-others movement, which relies heavily on voluntary participation. During the month of March (Women’s History Month), participants in one of our many edit-a-thons are first taught how to edit Wikipedia and then they sit around to do just that! Anyone can join in provided they have a laptop/tablet and they can stay for as long as they wish (from 45 min to the full duration of 5-6 hours). Some people choose to improve existing entries by providing more information and citations, while some even compile an entirely new article during the course of the event.

Thus, the movement is catching on for reasons other than its obvious noble aims- it’s super fun and easy to get involved with! Art+Feminism events have been organised at institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London; Yale University, New Haven; McGill University, Montreal; Archives Nationales, Paris; and many more. In India, the movement is currently in its third year and we aim to make it the biggest one yet. The current awareness of Indian women in the arts is unfortunately dismal, not just globally but even within our own country. We want to leverage this platform to shine a light on these unsung figures of history. This is why we need your help.

Roles and Responsibilities

We are looking to create multi-city teams of volunteers who will work with us closely to   

• Collate a list of topics, specifically on Indian women in the arts, for which Wikipedia does not currently have pages or for which information needs to be improved. We would also need to find reliable sources which can be cited on the Wikipedia entry- books, articles, online resources all count.

• Coordinate with local Wikipedians to conduct the event and work with partner institutions in your city to host and run the event. National Museum, Delhi, Piramal Museum of Art, Mumbai and Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh have hosted us in previous years.

• Generate a buzz on social media and reach out to your friends and family to participate. Anyone can jump in! We’ll get you involved in planning and executing social media campaigns in the lead up to the event.

• We are also looking for voluntary submissions of articles/content for our website www.theheritagelab.in on the same theme leading up to the main event.

I am aware that you have already indicated your preferences on the form but if something else on this list excites, do give us a shoutout in your reply.

Next steps

We are currently in process of finalising partner organisations who will host the event in each of your cities in March. This year we are also looking to increase the scope of the campaign and run events like pecha kucha nights, artist takeovers of museum spaces and panel discussions to promote a larger celebration of women in the arts. We would like your involvement and contribution to these parallel events as well.

At present, we require all hands on deck to identify the themes and topics which can be targeted during the edit-a-thon. For instance, consider the event page for the edit-a-thon run last year at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. While here, we have primarily listed women artists, we are also keen to profile women curators and art critics as well as feminist art movements, female characters in art among others. The larger theme for Art+Feminism 2019 is Gender+the Non Binary, so please feel free to find any topics within its larger purview. The only two things to keep in mind are

• The topics must have little to no coverage on Wikipedia

• Information for them must exist, either as digital or physical resources which can be cited and presented on the Wikipedia page

I will share a document with you by the end of the week where everyone can start listing possible topics, as well as possible resources. I’ll fill in the first couple of entries as examples to give you a headstart and a better understanding of what we’re looking for. You can still contribute to the list if you hadn’t listed yourself as a research volunteer earlier.

Having now understood the scope of the work, let us know if you’re interested in committing to the project up until the end of March. Your contribution can be tailored to suit your own personal schedules but we’re looking to have as many people on board. If for some reason you find yourself unable to volunteer, that’s okay too. We’d be happy if you could drop by and participate in the edit-a-thon when it is held in your city and spread awareness about our mission!

If you still have any questions or clarifications, please get back to us; we’ll be happy to hear from you. If you have other ideas for events or know of organisations that may be interested in our mission/host an edit-a-thon, give us a shout out.

If this sounds good to you, please reply to this email confirming your involvement as soon as possible. I'll then share the link to our Slack workspace so that we can take our work forward.

Needless to say, thrilled to start the Art+Feminism journey with you. Looking forward to working together!

Best,

Srishti Sood

Campaigns and Content Manager, The Heritage Lab

Read more

Art+Feminism Website

New Yorker writes about Art+Feminism

Piramal Museum, Art and Feminism 2017

National Museum, Art and Feminism 2017

Must check out- Guerrilla Girls (just for fun)