 Hi. Oh, that is loud. Okay, great Hello, hello My name is Chiara. I'm Maya Gopi and I am the Wikipedia project assistant at Black Launch Table During this presentation, I will be highlighting Black Launch Tables Wikipedia organizing efforts from 2019 to the present But first, I'll give you some backstory on what Black Launch Table is for those who are unfamiliar Organized around literal and metaphorical launch tables Black Launch Table takes the school lunchroom phenomenon at its starting point In previous iterations from 2006 to 2011 Black Launch Table took the forms of online intercollegiate meetups Artist salons and informal roundtable discussions and currently it compromises It comprises a series of artist roundtables community roundtables An online oral history archive and a wiki media initiative The format for our roundtables is modeled after a project iteration we staged in 2014 In Chicago at the black artist retreat, which is an annual symposium for black artists Participants are curated into conversations provided with a set of prompts and discussions are audio recorded and transcribed for our For eventual public access and on our online archive In January 2015, we staged our first people's table Then called the Black Lives Matter table and that event responded to recent police involved shootings as unarmed black people and state violence both locally and internationally As the research models for the Black Lives Table archive to house the recorded audio We noted that significant black artists were omitted from art historical archives and the world's most widely referenced psychopedia wikipedia Our wikipedia initiative redresses these omissions by mobilizing a collective ordering of articles on the lives and works of black artists When we began our wikipedia project in 2014 Important figures such as Fred Moten, Misha Gabba, Peggy Cooper-Caffrets and Valerie Castle Oliver were all with all wikipedia pages Several years later Each of these important figures has a page that began as a BLT target Black lunch table is recognized as an official wiki media user group And then under covid we hosted dozens of online events including editor tons workshops artists features and skill shares We also collaborated with other institutions to bring a wikipedia project to their communities In 2019 Black lunch table was granted 501 3c status, which is non-profit status And as it evolved exponentially with the support and dedication of its governance board and the commitment of its funders As to the support of grants from the Mellon foundation, the Warhol foundation, the Logan foundation, Root foundation many foundations creative capital The foundation for contemporary art Among many others black lunch table has matured from an independent collaboration between two artists Heather Hart and Gina Valentine Into a non-profit with administrative staff production staff and affiliate proxies in other cities So the wiki media foundation estimates that 77 percent of wiki editors are white and 91 percent are men Our work shifts this demographic and empowers people to write their own histories Our sessions and events including editor tons bingo contents BLT live and monthly office hours all of which i'll run over today equip new editors with the skill and resources to create update and improve wikipedia articles and encourage existing editors to focus on wikipedia knowledge gaps A few years ago, the wiki media foundation published the results of its annual community insights a global survey of 2,500 wiki medians including active editors and program leaders conducted in september and october 2020 And here you can see the stats where There's a lot of you know, white people editing on wikipedia not so many Black people editing on wikipedia. You see the necessity of the work. It's there Not to dwell on it, but yes um, so more about our programming so um, we include like I said earlier editor tons contests blt live and office hours And we provide editors with the skills to update things to focus on wikipedia knowledge gaps, especially the lives of black artists So first off, I have editor tons. So this map basically details all the places that we've held black lunch table programming um between 2019 and the present Minus two upcoming events So black lunch table editor tons have taken place at MoMA New York public library the mccall center in charlotte, north carolina The jone michael center new york leans and project warehouses in houston and internationally We have hosted editor tons at bridge books in johannesburg, south africa and bam center in alberta canada as well as at Alice yard Which is an artist residency in trinidad island to bego and analyst kingston, which is another artist residency in trinidad island in kingston jamaica my bad um And then this year we've hosted programming in new york at pratt's institutes anti-racism symposium and at stove works, which is an artist residency in chattanooga, tennessee One of our initiatives is the regional proxy position So the role of the proxy is to help establish black lunch tables wikipedia initiative in their own community Through hosting tree wikipedia editor turn events annually developing the local editorship via training and support and developing institutional outreach and partnerships The proxy is also responsible for reporting finances and metrics for the events to the BLT team I myself was a regional proxy for black lunch table And I've hosted workshops in jamaica trinidad and to bego and detroit Recently we've had regional proxies in nigeria but swana and the democratic of kongol democratic republic of kongol In the u.s. We've had proxies working domestically in seattle washington and houston texas So, you know that whole thing covet happened and it's still happening. Um, and so we came up with a lot of different Initiatives that were run online to support the lives of black artists And one of those was black um was BLT live So BLT life was a series of instagram live Artist talks that highlight the work and interests Of individual black artists this program was devised as a way to direct money to artists as exhibitions and freelance work were cancelled due to covid And it's still ongoing and will return I let this air on next year Um, it has been important to black lunch table to compensate artists during the pandemic Black lunch table live where we invite artists to give a talk or anything that they desire to share with a public has allowed us to direct $4108 to 21 artists up to the present and In the past we featured artists and artists because such as down half formerly of like studio museum Of Harlem Pamela council. We just went to Guggenheim Ilana Harris Babu, Shani Peters and more And if you all take a picture of this you can see all of these videos on vimeo and our archive, which is available to the public um Another major programming initiative that we've had recently um is a fellowship that we've had with pace gallery um this six months long fellowship developed by Eliza Myrie who is black lunch tables wiki director um culminated with an exhibition titled action query um black art Black arts and it's and black aesthetics at pace gallery is new york gallery from February 1st to the 25th of 2023 um The first appointed fellow Kristen Owens created a bibliographic text based on her research into the black american And into the black american and black diasporic artists in paces history Central to Owens fellowship is a text by caroline faula tied to black arts and black aesthetics a bibliography from 1981 A self-published bibliography Of 800 entries it was inspired by the popular black arts movement of the time During her time at pace Owens also facilitated conversations with black artists and scholars about archaic well work including artist Camilla Janan Rashid um the founder of the black art library asthma walton scholar dr. Howard ramsey the second and more All of which are accessible to the public via paces website for review So if you go to paces website, there's an entire section on Kristen's work and what she accomplished over six months with the gallery So on the left hand side, we have a picture of Kristen At pace working and on the right hand side. That is me and Eliza at paces library So Owens project on black bibliography is critical to advancing the work of documenting and disseminating information about artists It harnesses the potential of collections that are not directly public facing And creates an opportunity to share that information The traditions and lineage of fallow's work are taking up in multiple ways in this partnership Moreover the difficulty that fallow faced in publishing and distributing her work as a young black academic Is reflected in the challenges wikipedia editors face when seeking reliable and verifiable sources That satisfy notability requirements on the encyclopedia Access to the collection and archives of pace provided valuable source texts to improve wikipedia Many black artists and cultural workers are missing or Underdocumented in the world's largest and most encyclopedia among most accessible encyclopedia In the field of mainstream contemporary art Black artists are still marginalized within their field Black lunchtables list of artists whose wikipedia pages need improvement or creation is over 1300 names long A formidable and growing challenge an element of this fellowship is the improvement of wikipedia articles of black artists another thing that I managed to come up with During covid was this black lunch table bingo Um, it's basically a bingo card of artists who are on our list of 1300 names Who either need pages developed or have no pages have no pages at all or need their pages developed and or improved Um, and every two months I make a new one new team So this one here is just an example of the one that I made when christian was a fellow at pace Um, and so the entire card is populated with artists from paces history of exit from paces exhibition history black artists from paces exhibition history Um, so stay tuned for september's bingo, you know, follow us on twitter If you'd like to be notified of the next iteration of it um when prizes New articles are preferred Um, but you can also just improve all ones and you qualify just send us an email when you've done that And yeah, we'll get your prize out to you. But also I think it's personally I think it's a great tool for teaching wikipedia to students in schools if it's something that needs to be integrated into a class format um So this iteration Of BLT bingo features black american and black diasporic artists who have been represented By or exhibited with pace gallery during the 60th history Um, another one of our initiatives is the black lunch table photo booth in an effort to make notable artists That fall into the wiki gaps more visible black lunch table began a photographic initiative that includes wiki commons contests partnerships with art schools And it invites professional photographers to host a pop-up portrait studio at some of our editor turns and make that work open License for free use edit and distribution You can find these photos on wiki media commons so essentially when we have wiki when we have programming such as a um Editor turn for instance What would usually happen is that we have a partnership with like a partner institution like a school We have the editor turn and then on the side we will hire a local photographer To document people that attended or local artists who are there they would sign a permission form give it to us And then we would upload it to wiki media commons What this is is kind of like a pro active way to approach imaging the other issue with having Artists with no wikipedia pages is that they often have no images that are Acceptable to go on those pages So sometimes the card goes before the horse sometimes the image exists before the page exists But when the page does exist, we will always have an image there waiting for it to happen um And then recently we developed our wiki artist workshop we launched the first iteration of that And basically this targeted black artists with existing wikipedia with existing wikipedia pages or people who are starting a career And are curious about how a wikipedia page is made And so basically they would join us for an hour long clinic where we equipped participants with the tools necessary to engage with wikipedia As an artist slash public figure By the end of this session artists will become familiar with the rules and regulations of editing on wikipedia And the sibling websites wiki data and wiki media commons They would gain insight into navigating disputes Learn how to upload images of themselves and their work to these sites with the correct licenses And how to make it as easy as possible for your audience to write a concise and accurate article about them and their work Writers, galleries, historians, students, general enthusiasts and other stakeholders will welcome to attend And this clinic was hosted over zoom and is free for the public to use um to attend This really came out of Every now and then we get an email that goes please save us our wikipedia page It's not the information is just not correct. What do we do? And then we have to be like well, we can technically do anything Actually Nor can you technically because you're a public figure. And so this came out of navigating People's anxieties about being in public and having people write about them But also works as a corrective for folks When they do interviews how they think about themselves how they talk about themselves think about the futurity of what they're putting forward into the world And so here's some upcoming stuff that we have We have office hours every month that I host Next one is on august 27th So if you'd like to edit alongside us who ask specific questions about the page that you're working on that is directly related to our scope of interest Feel free to drop in If you can't make it this month the days and times of the remaining sessions can be found on our page on wiki Um And then we have september and october's blt bingo and next one is coming out soon So look on twitter where we post tips about each artist on the card to get you started if you're looking for a launchpad And then we're also working on developing a writing and criticism program with the publication 60 inches from center Which is a criticism um platform based in the midwestern us And this initiative will train young writers and critics living in that region Um by helping them develop articles about black artists also there because the issue is not only that There aren't pages about black artists, but there's no criticism available about black artists That there are there is criticism, but we need more essentially Um, and then we're also working on editor tons in santa monica um in california and indiana penniless in indiana And so yeah, that's about that Um, feel free to follow us Um, you can find on me top page on wikipedia first bullet point There's an instagram twitter and black and our website for everything including our archive Um, and so yeah, thanks for listening If you have any questions I'll attempt to answer them now, but also no questions. It's great and cool and fabulous So either one You know, I'm always scared of them, but I'll take it Or you can use the microphone. Actually, sorry My bad Hi, it's a bit intimidating. Um, so I'm from the uk chapter. Um, and when the foundation did the community insight survey They also looked at the uk statistics, and I don't think you'll fall down in surprise To find out that actually a lot of white people in the uk also edit wikipedia and very few black or asian people And so as the uk chapter one of our Priorities is thinking about how we diversify the editor base. Um, we've done a lot around gender But we haven't done as much around race and I guess my my my question is How open might you be to collaboration with a chapter because I appreciate that you're based in the u.s but I I've got some really good ideas, but at the same time I don't want to just like Implement those ideas in the uk So I'm just sort of saying it'd be great to talk to you Maybe at some point over the weekend or to talk to Eliza about whether there's something we could do together But just to say I think this is really cool work and some of the things that you've done Like we're quite a well established chapter, but some of the things you've done around, um Uh, I can't remember what you called it. Sorry But basically advising artists of color, you know, how they might improve those are totally new ideas to us to me So, um, thank you for that Thank you. Yeah, no feel free to come chat with me And I will take questions off my because I'm getting cut off. They play in the shark music for me So I the jaws music. So I got to go Bye