Grants:Project/Rapid/Art+Feminism 2022 Trinity College/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2021-22 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/Art+Feminism 2022 Trinity College.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went? We are very happy with how our event went. Our edit-a-thon helped initiate students to Wikipedia as editors and allowed us to discuss the politics of representation affecting the arts. The club we partnered with, Nest Artists, also inspired us to create an arts and crafts library that supported a making component that accompanied the event. The supplies were used by students to create artwork drawing on the themes of the event. We hope to continue to draw on that art and craft library to add a making component to further edit-a-thons. We also did an edit-a-thon with a public history course that was an unexpected, but successful, part of the event. This is part of an ongoing extension of our event resource site into classrooms as a resource to support editing assignments on a whole host of topics. Our materials have been used in a first-year seminar written up in the New England Board of Education as an example of student edits that reach a wide readership on Wikipedia. This allowed us to reach our goal of creating new editors, supporting co-creation in our community, and raising awareness of open learning and related issues. We met our goal of supporting our local arts community by sponsoring a student art contest and suggesting artists’ pages with ties to our community for editing.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Recruit new editors	Added 25 new editors	A collaboration with a club on campus whose mission aligned with art+feminism helped us achieve some needed buy-in for the event. The club on campus brings together student artists of color and has issues of representation at the core of its mission, which aligns perfectly with the priorities of art+feminism.
Create Community around co-creation	Added or edited 35 articles on underrepresented Connecticut art and artists. Held a student art contest.	The arts and craft library project and student art competition we created around our event have been very successful. What continues to prove a challenge and area for growth is our ability to make editing itself a draw to students on campus. Advertising the possibility of creating art in our space drew students in, and then we could show some sample Wikipedia pages demonstrating issues driving art+feminism which generated interest in learning to edit.
Create Advocates for Open Learning	Added new editors and made student artists aware of Wikipedia editing as an issue in open learning	We still need to work on outreach on Wikipedia as an example of technology that is not value-neutral and a valuable means of contributing to public knowledge. One method we are exploring is a faculty-directed workshop on how to bring Wikipedia editing into more classrooms as an assignment or course component. This could present another point of contact with students outside our yearly event. We also saw major success in drawing students to arts/crafting-branded events. We could build on this to have more conversations about technology and representation while students take part in making events like crochet, etc. that themselves are part of a larger tradition of gendered and often underrepresented artistic practices.
Contribute to public awareness of art and artists in our community on Wikipedia	Held an edit-a-thon and an art contest for artists in our community	We had 25 participants in our events who created or made edits to 35 articles. We are excited by the possibility of future events which combine editing pages related to underrepresented Connecticut art and artists with contests and events that celebrate our student artists on campus.

Learning

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What worked well?

The arts and crafts library is a huge success, and something we will continue to build on in terms of resources for students and sources of programming to further the issues of art+feminism. Specifically, we’ve invited a student artist to lead workshops on crocheting, which was a big success. We are exploring offering more student-led events like this in which we may incorporate ideas at the heart of art+feminism and create greater interest in editing.

What did not work so well?

We are still working on getting students interested in Wikipedia editing in its own right. An art contest and opportunities to make and share art have been successful, and we want to build on this to make Wikipedia editing appear similarly accessible and fun.

What would you do differently next time?

We will be working to do outreach in the form of faculty workshops to integrate editing into classrooms. We will also do outreach to other student organizations to increase awareness of Wikipedia editing and its links to student interests. We will also do more student-led arts workshops that can tie into the mission of art+feminism.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Student art contest prizes (a gift certificate to a local art supply store) $50
Art supplies for the contest (paper, easels, paints, colored pencils) $768
Misc. refreshments and supplies (30 box lunches at $13/person and snacks) $475

Total: $1293

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds? No, and costs exceeding the grant total were paid by Trinity College LITS

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?