feminist art history

Female Modern British Artists Wikipedia Editathon: My Experience by Theresa Kneppers

Female Modern British Artists Wikipedia Editathon: My Experience

For me, like most people I would guess, Wikipedia is an information source that I consult weekly if not daily. I don’t think it’d be a stretch to say that most of us would be a lot more lost without it. With it being such a wealth of information and so readily available, I easily forget that each and every Wikipedia entry is written by a living, breathing person. The editathon served to remind me that this free font of knowledge, is a human product that has taken care and effort by a community of editors around the world. So in being reminded of that, it was nice to be able to give back by contributing something myself.

I was quite shocked to learn that only 17% of the 1.5 million Wiki biographies written in English are of women. I want to thank Borough Road Gallery and Wikimedia, for providing an opportunity to contribute to the changing of that statistic.

The process of writing the article was harder than I had thought it would be. I chose to write about Rachel Nicholson and was surprised to find a very private individual with very little online presence - this coupled with the need for authoritative sources made the beginning of the writing experience a little frustrating. By the end of the editathon, I’d made progress and gained even more appreciation for the efforts of Wikipedia editors.

All in all, it was a very wholesome experience. As a young freelance creative just starting out, I’m feeling the pressure to specialise, to tie myself to one area of expertise, when all I want to be doing is experimenting. It was somewhat serendipitous that I stumbled upon Rachel Nicholson among a long list of names; Nicholson didn’t become a painter until she was in her forties. Being the daughter of two famous artists, she resisted the pressures to become an artist until it was right for her. Learning this was reassuring and calmed a few of my ‘recent graduate jitters’.

I didn’t quite get to finish my piece, and as all articles go through a checking process, a Wiki bio of Rachel Nicholson is still “coming soon”. I’d really encourage anyone who has some spare time, to get editing an article themselves because it’s such a simple and easy process, only requiring time and interest in the subject matter.

Lennie.

www.lenniehoward.co.uk

Instagram: @lenniehoward


Transcript of Abigail Ashford's talk "What are we bit meat?" Dorothy Mead and Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto by Theresa Kneppers

In this talk I am going to briefly propose some answers to the question at hand, “What are we but meat?” which was posed by Ruth Busby in her essay on Dorothy Mead’s self-portrait of 1959, questioning what is left when physical signs of humanity are stripped away in the act of painting. To do this I am going to use ideas put forward by Donna Haraway in her 1985 Cyborg Manifesto to discuss the artwork of Dorothy Mead. Part of the beauty and continued significance of these paintings lies in their visual resonance with Haraway’s vision of polyvalent identity outside patriarchal structures, involving women, machines and animals. I therefore feel that Haraway’s terminology might be used productively to describe Mead’s contribution to feminist art history, particularly in rejecting essentialism.

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