With laptops in hand, people gathered in the Harn Museum of Art on Sunday to increase representation of female artists on Wikipedia.
The second annual Wikipedia Edit-a-thon: Art + Feminism was held to represent women and artists in other minority groups. The Gainesville event, hosted by the Harn and UF’s School of Art + Art History, was one of many held around the world, said Melissa Hyde, the director of graduate students for UF’s School of Art + Art History.
About 40 people sat in the museum’s auditorium, editing or creating articles about artists for about four hours.
Hyde said by increasing the number of women who create and are the subjects of Wikipedia pages, the website would more accurately represent artists.
“It’s such an important source for us now, it’s like the first stop for everybody when you want to look something up,” she said.
Ninety percent of Wikipedia’s content is produced by men, said Eric Segal, the director of education and curator of academic programs at the Harn.
“The content itself tends to skew towards male interests,” Segal said.
Jennifer Canals, a UF art history junior, said she wanted to attend Sunday’s event after participating last year.
“We have a long history of being misrepresented as women and especially as women artists,” the 21-year-old said. “I think that it’s really great that we’re giving recognition to artists that otherwise would not be getting recognition.”
