GLAM/Newsletter/December 2022/Contents/AvoinGLAM report

This Month in GLAM – Volume XII, Issue XII, December 2022

AvoinGLAM report

Introducing Wiki Loves Living Heritage

Wiki Loves Living Heritage

Wiki Loves Living Heritage celebrates living heritage on the 20th anniversary of the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage throughout 2023. It brings together heritage practitioners and communities, Wikimedia volunteers, NGOs and other safeguarding organizations around the world to create activities together.

Living Heritage embraces practices, knowledge and skills that have been passed on through generations and are still valuable and in use today. It includes for example oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills related to crafts. Living heritage is also a source of time-tested knowledge about how to live on our planet sustainably and peacefully.

Heritage elements are inventoried in more than 180 countries across the globe. Each year a number of them are inscribed on the UNESCO Lists of Intangible Heritage.

Join designing the project formats in regular open planning meetings starting in January

Wiki Loves Living Heritage is an open-ended, year-long global campaign platform that invites UNESCO focal points, safeguarding organizations and heritage communities to work together with Wikimedia affiliates and communities to jointly create documentation activities. It uses social media, blog posts and videos to highlight the activities, and all the documentation is brought together and contributed to the Wikimedia projects.

Locally arranged projects can include photo walks, documentation drives, local seminars, blog posts, media uploads and more. Global attention on the media channels is given to one region or theme at a time for a short period.

Data about the heritage elements

The campaign gives an opportunity to import living heritage data from the UNESCO lists, inventories in the states parties and living heritage outside these into Wikidata, where it can serve current and future upload campaigns. The corresponding articles and categories can be aligned with the data. The new and existing materials with contributions from contests are brought together to jubilate living culture.

Ethical sharing

Documenting and sharing community-owned heritage requires careful consideration. An important part of the project is to understand and explore the practices of ethical documentation and sharing in the open environment. A webinar is planned for March in collaboration with the Ethics of Open Sharing working group at Creative Commons. The goal is to start a discussion on ethical guidelines for documentation activities on Wikimedia projects.

The project is initiated jointly between the European network of focal points for the UNESCO 2003 Convention (ENFP) and AvoinGLAM. It is supported by European Heritage Days Network, Workshop intangible heritage & Flemish Commission for UNESCO in Belgium and Conseil québécois du patrimoine vivant. More information about the partners will follow as they are confirmed.

Web publication on Meta

Wiki Loves Living Heritage on Meta will be the main publication for the campaign

Browse the living heritage elements

Join!

General information: Presentation slides; View the page about the different ways of joining
Volunteer working groups for Data imports, Editorial, and Ethical sharing: Join volunteer working groups on-wiki or by sharing your contact information
Create or join local activities: Wiki Loves Living Heritage for affiliates (memo); Share your contact information with organizations to make contact; Subscribe to the planning meetings calendar
Share your ideas for activities: Ideas for activities
We are still setting up the channels for global conversations

Communications designer

The project seeks a communications designer to create a communications plan between February and March for both visual design and communications design. See the call at Open positions and apply before January 20, 2023.