2024:Program/Pérez Art Museum Miami and Wikimedia Projects: Expanding Artists’ Visibility and Knowledge Access

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Session title: Pérez Art Museum Miami and Wikimedia Projects: Expanding Artists’ Visibility and Knowledge Access

Session type: Poster

Track: GLAM

Language: en

The Pérez Art Museum Miami Wikimedian in Residence seeks to advance the museum's digital offerings while expanding visibility and knowledge about artists in PAMM's modern and contemporary collections. This presentation is centered around the Wikipedia programming that established an institution-wide effort to openly share museum scholarship online by improving coverage of artists in PAMM’s collections on Wikimedia projects. The WIR has been advancing the museum's commitment to equity and access at every level – from public programs and audience engagement to professional development for staff and media literacy workshops for PAMM's Teen Arts Council.

Description

For 2023-2024, PAMM is hosting its first-ever Wikimedian in Residence. An initiative that seeks to advance the museum's digital offerings while expanding the visibility and knowledge about artists in PAMM's modern and contemporary collections, particularly female-identified artists from the PAMM Caribbean Cultural Institute. This data-informed presentation will show how museums can lead global efforts on the representation of art and visual culture on the internet –Wikimedia projects have a gender gap problem, and so do museums – through open-source knowledge platforms.

The poster is centered around the Wikipedia programming that established an institution-wide effort to openly share museum scholarship online by improving coverage of artists in PAMM’s collections on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata. The WIR collaborated with staff across the institution–education to development, marketing to curatorial, and others–, the public, community partners, and local institutions in South Florida, and led original public programs, taught workshops, and interviewed contemporary artists exhibiting at the museum.

In her ongoing tenure, the Wikimedian in Residence at PAMM has been advancing the museum's commitment to equity and access at every level of its project. From public programming and audience engagement to professional development for staff and media literacy classes for PAMM's Teen Arts Council, the WIR echoes the museum’s diverse collection by highlighting the biographies of female and non-binary contemporary artists, whose voices are so often left out of the traditional art historical discourse. The WIR at PAMM is also committed to expanding Wikimedia's multilingualism to the museum world by translating articles she created for PAMM's exhibiting artists.

The presentation will function as a lightning talk, showing visuals and figures from the Wikimedian in Residence dashboard, which measures the quantitative impact of PAMM contributions to Wikimedia projects within over one year of efforts –Jan 2023 to July 2024. The presentation contextualizes the roles PAMM Caribbean Cultural Institute and Art+Feminism — “a campaign improving coverage of cis and transgender women, non-binary folks, feminism, and the arts on Wikipedia” — played in the development of the WIR program. Furthermore, the presentation refers to data systematically collected during the Residence to explore how museums and art organizations can broaden their efforts toward tangible and cost-effective actions to foster access, equity, and inclusive learning environments for its community in and out of the museum walls.

Broadly, this session will (1) Address the social impact of one of the largest online encyclopedias on art museums in the United States and beyond. (2) Explore mission-driven innovative avenues for audience engagement, media literacy, and critical thinking through diverse art narratives. (3) Contribute to discussions and best practices around museum access and content development for bilingual audiences in modern and contemporary art museums. GLAM professionals and educators with an interest in expanding interdisciplinary collaborations and leveraging digital access to collections, exhibitions, and its artists – particularly for bilingual audiences – through Wikimedia projects can benefit from this presentation.

How does your session relate to the event theme, Collaboration of the Open?

Throughout this session, attendees will be able to make sense of this year’s Wikimania themes Collaboration of the Open, by exploring mission-driven innovative avenues for audience engagement, media literacy, and critical thinking through diverse art narratives. The session highlights cross-departmental and community-focused collaborations. Session attendees will also hear first-hand from PAMM’s Wikimedian in Residence about her experience establishing the WIR program, connecting with peers, conducting independent research into the museum collection and institutional archive, and organizing public programs for various audiences.

What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?

Everyone can participate in this session

Speakers

• Michaela Blanc, Lucy Moore, Giovanna Fontenelle

Michaela Blanc is a Brazilian art researcher based in the United States. She is a Wikimedian in Residence at the Perez Art Museum in Miami and a Regional Ambassador for Art+Feminism. In 2024, she served on the WikiWomenCamp 2023 scholarship committee; she was a presenter at Wiki GLAM Conference 2023; a speaker at Celtic Knot Conference 2022; and a guest panelist in 2021 in the 20 years of Lusophone Wikipedia. She holds an MA in Museum Education and a BA in Art History. She is the co-founder of NaPupila, a curatorial collective in Brazil.

Lucy Moore is an archaeologist, curator and Wikimedian. In 2024 she completed a quest to write an article on English Wikipedia for a woman from every country in the world.

Giovanna Fontenelle is a Journalist and Historian. She works as a Program Officer for the Culture and Heritage team at the Wikimedia Foundation. In 2022 and 2023, she was the General Coordinator of Creative Commons Brasil and still is a member of the Global Network. Her current work is related to GLAM-Wiki, Open GLAM, and Linked Open Data initiatives, especially with museums, in addition to projects on diversity, mainly gender, and knowledge equity. As a volunteer, she has organized edit-a-thons and training for women addressing the gender gap.