The Wikimedia Foundation has launched an initiative that will see Black and African artists and other artists from underrepresented ethnicities collaborate to create a visual representation of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) through a Wikimedia project titled Wiki Unseen.

Wiki Unseen is poised to aid the global nonprofit organization’s effort in advancing knowledge equity, and the project’s first iteration, a collaboration with artists from Africa, North America, and the Caribbean, will help to address the visual and written underrepresentation of several Black historical figures on Wikipedia and in media repository Wikimedia Commons.

“Wiki Unseen aims to make Black histories and those of other people underrepresented on Wikipedia more visible,” said Anusha Alikhan, Vice President of Communications at the Wikimedia Foundation. “Closing knowledge equity gaps — including visual ones — is key to ensuring Wikimedia projects are accessible to everyone and represent the breadth of the world’s cultures, experiences, and languages. We know that our work is incomplete until the diversity of our world’s histories are seen.”

This initiative is consequent on the fact that when BIPOC histories are told, too often they lack visual representation; an assertion that is corroborated by the research that showed that of the 30+ articles in the African Royalty category on English Wikipedia, only three pages picture their subjects. This is problematic as visual aids and illustrations help people understand and retain information and their absence reinforces and perpetuates biases.

Another research shows that Wikipedia articles featuring illustrations increase audience engagement and views, creating an additional point of entry for visual learners and expanding understanding of the information presented. With this in mind, the Wikimedia Foundation collaborated with AfroCROWD.org, a Wikipedia-volunteer led initiative to create and improve information about Black culture and history on Wikipedia, and Bēhance, a social media platform that showcases creative work, to select 20 Wikipedia articles of BIPOC historical figures without visual representation and source a list of artists from the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean to create portraits of each. This year, the selected artists will create portraits for six of the 20 historical figures.

The commissioned artists include Enam Bosokah from Ghana, Esther Griffith from Trinidad, and Bukhtawar Malik from the United States. Enam Bosokah will create the first cohort of artworks representing historical figures from Ghana and Senegal.

“Participating in this project is part of what I have been wanting to do as an artist in Africa. Black Africans have been excluded from history and knowing that I can contribute towards making this wrong right is an honor. Wiki Unseen has presented me with an opportunity to make a difference at a larger scale,” said Enam Bosokah

“I hope more African artists will take heed of this call and contribute to the free knowledge movement.” Wikipedia is powered by a global community of volunteer contributors working to advance Wikimedia projects in support of a vision to ensure that people everywhere can share in the sum of all human knowledge. A central pillar of the Wikimedia Movement’s 2030 strategy is to break down the social, political, and technical barriers preventing people from accessing and contributing to free knowledge, focused on communities left out by structures of power and privilege.”

The Wikipedia entries on Marian Ewurama Addy, William Greaves, Rose Dieng-Kuntz, May Miller, Mercedes Richards, and Asquith Xavier are some of the first articles that will feature new illustrations and portraits. These portraits which will be published throughout the month of February include personalities whose images are not freely licensed and therefore had been unable to be added to Wikipedia articles.