Interested in hosting an edit-a-thon with us? More information here.
Interested in attending our next public edit-a-thon? More information here.
What is an edit-a-thon?
Our edit-a-thons are research sessions where a group of participants collectively conduct research and draft a batch of artist entries within the Rolodex. This can take place over the course of roughly three hours, in person or virtually. We host roughly one edit-a-thon per semester at academic institutions across Canada.
The organization of the edit-a-thons are flexible depending on the needs of participants and hosts. Guest artists are sometimes also asked to participate.
Why an edit-a-thon?
As the Manifesto by the Afro-Asian Networks Research Collective in Radical History (2018) argues, “researchers need to ask new questions together and encourage practices that do not reinforce the hierarchies that the decolonizing world sought to overcome.”
Edit-a-thon sessions allow for collaboration and co-authorship in the making of the Rolodex and are forums for discussion, reflection and knowledge dissemination. They are designed to foster community and conversation across institutions and fields and allow the project to diversify its audience and perspectives. Feedback from these sessions informs our evolving methodology.
The Rolodex gathers knowledge from various community sources, making the database more diverse and inclusive. This approach challenges traditional methods of collecting information, focusing on working together and building relationships instead of just categorizing or extracting data.
For participants, it is a learning opportunity in relational understandings of art, BIPOC identities, and other intersectional identities in the context of global citizenship. It is also a practice in critical data studies approaches in digital humanities and archive studies. Participants will consider the possibilities of decolonizing the epistemologies and structures of databases. The group can foster discussions around the practice of restorative research on a case-by-case basis.
Their contributions will ultimately aid in platforming BIPOC artists and methodologies on the world stage. We hope for participants to build a sense of familiarity with the names in the Rolodex, expand their professional networks, and orient themselves in relation to an evolving field of Canadian BIPOC art.
Canadian BIPOC Artists Rolodex 