The Women's Art Register is an organization that seeks to document and promote the artistic work of women in Australia, both throughout history and in the present moment. I stumbled on the organization while visiting the Richmond Public Library, where a portion of the archive is available to the public. I decided to spend one day a week volunteering in the archive, as I felt I had ample free time and had some archival experience from my job at the AMS.
I helped the head of WAR, Caroline Phillips with some basic sorting and updating. I took on a personal project of disassembling the folders labeled "Aboriginal Artists", and moving records into folders with the artist's names, as was standard practice for non-Aboriginal artists in the archive. I also participated in their Wikipedia Edit-a-thon.
This experience was very fulfilling, and taught me so much about the continued under-representation of women in the art historical archive, and how this affects non-white women at a magnified scale. I was able to meet Australian women and artists coming from different generations and perspectives, and absorb so much wisdom about the intersection of feminism and art.
Learning Significance