In recent years, Wikipedia has become the established go-to source for public information in the field of art history. The Museum of Modern Art’s Online Collection increasingly relies on Wikipedia for artist’s biographies, incorporating Wikipedia entries along with Getty records. The representation of Japanese and other Asian artists and movements, however, is far fewer and far less substantial in terms of the number and length of entries on postwar and contemporary European and American art. This lack of presence and information on Wikipedia – the presumed absolute repository of knowledge – perpetuates the peripheral status of Japanese art within a global art history.

The PoNJA Wikipedia Initiative (PWI) is a multi-year project aimed at addressing this imbalance of art historical information available online by recruiting and training emerging scholars as Wikipedia Editors to dramatically expand the number and length of entries on postwar and contemporary Japanese artists and movements. These efforts help to further expand the presence of the field while broadening free access for a global online public to greater information on postwar and contemporary Japanese and Asian Art in the English language.

The first phase of PWI in 2021 (PWI 1) was a marked success, with twelve Fellows adding over 310,000 words and 3,700 scholarly references to 102 new or improved Japan-related Wikipedia articles. AAA-A and PoNJA-GenKon invite applications to continue this fruitful collaboration and embark on a new phase of this initiative, PWI 2, beginning in 2022. For PWI 2, we are seeking a new cohort of ten emerging scholars and will also expand the scope of the articles suggested for creation or improvement to include postwar and contemporary Korean artists / groups / movements in addition to Japanese. To help incorporate this change, the PWI 2 Fellowship period will unfold over 15 months throughout 2022-2023.

Method

This project is organized by AAA-A and PoNJA-GenKon and overseen by an Editorial Committee whose members are Alexandra Munroe, Miwako Tezuka, Ming Tiampo, Jane DeBevoise, Charlotte Horlyck, and Reiko Tomii.

Fellows’ contributions will be monitored by both the Project Director and Project Manager, assisted by two Editorial Associates, Nina Horisaki-Christens and Sohl Lee.