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GLAM/Newsletter/December 2023/Contents/Wiki Loves Living Heritage report

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Wiki Loves Living Heritage report

Thank you for making Wiki Loves Living Heritage happen!

By Leena Marsio and Jorijn Neyrinck (European Network of Focal Points for the UNESCO 2003 Convention), Susannaanas (AvoinGLAM), and Sadik Shahadu (Dagbani Wikimedians User Group)

To celebrate living heritage and mark the twentieth anniversary of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the Wiki Loves Living Heritage campaign was launched by the European Network of Focal Points for the 2003 Convention (ENFP) and AvoinGLAM in the spring of 2023. The participatory, community-driven initiative has called on heritage practitioners, local Wikimedia volunteers as well as the ICH Focal Points, facilitators, accredited ICH NGOs and other stakeholders around the world to document and celebrate their living heritage. It has resulted in 5 500 living heritage elements described in Wikidata, representing over 24 000 existing and new Wikipedia articles written about them in 276 different languages as well as 3000 new photos in Wikimedia Commons.

The year has been a door opener for many fruitful upcoming cooperations and the project has offered learning and skill sharing opportunities for local heritage practitioners, Wikimedia communities as well as the ICH Focal Points, NGOs and other stakeholders. Alongside promoting open access to cultural heritage, the initiative has made a strong commitment to ethical sharing. The campaign will continue bringing together new kinds of collaborations for safeguarding our living heritage for the future.

The activities have been independently chosen by the participating communities themselves. Events and photo contests have been a popular choice in different parts of the world. Among the highlights is Wikimania 2023 of over 2 000 participants with a keynote around ICH by Dr. Kirk Siang Yeo, and the impressive Wiki Loves Living Heritage in Singapore Photo Contest with around 1 200 photos and winners awarded in the final ceremony. In Europe, the European photo contest related to the campaign resulted in 1 700 photos. All these photos are now openly available in Wikimedia Commons.

The different corners of the Open movement have made this global collaboration come true. The participating Wikimedians in affiliates have coordinated activities and data imports with UNESCO focal points across the world, featured in TV shows and being invited to talk about Open Culture in governmental events. Volunteers have participated by bringing data online, writing articles, transcribing living heritage literature, participating in the photo contests, joining the weekly meetups, presenting at events, solving problems on the online channel, maintaining translations or providing technical advice.

Wikimedia Foundation supported the activity throughout the process. The Wikimedia Foundation Culture & Heritage team joined organizing the Ethics of Open Sharing webinar. The Communications team has provided support and two events have been organized with the Let's Connect Learning Clinics.

The Ethics of Open Sharing webinar was arranged in collaboration with the Creative Commons Open Culture Platform and the Ethics of Open Sharing working group. They produced Ethical Sharing Card deck based on the MOI Framework, produced on a cooperation project lead by Finnish Heritage Agency and supported by NEMO. The amazing speakers Melissa Shaginoff, Shailili Zamora Aray, Patricia Adjei and Mehtab Khan set the tone and discourse for the whole year to come.

Wiki Loves Living Heritage was part of several events over the course of the year. Living Heritage Bazaar events were arranged in Europe in collaboration with the European Heritage Days coordinators, at Wikimania in Singapore and in the GLAM Wiki 2023 Conference in Montevideo, Uruguay. At GLAMhack 2023 in Geneva, Switzerland, Traditional Knowledge content labeling on Wikimedia projects was workshopped with Local Contexts. Data import was discussed at WikidataCon, modelling living heritage at Data Modelling Days, and using Wikimedia Meta as the project platform at GLAM Wiki 2023.

The campaign was supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, Council of Europe / European Heritage Days, Quebec Council for Living Heritage, Dutch Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage, Federal Office of Culture of Switzerland, Workshop Intangible Heritage Flanders & Flemish Commission for UNESCO in Belgium, and the Finnish Heritage Agency.

We wish to thank you all, and hope to continue work together!

Leena, Jorijn, Susanna and Sadik

  • Jorijn Neyrinck and Leena Marsio at the Eighteenth session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Botswana, presenting Wiki Loves Living Heritage
    Jorijn Neyrinck and Leena Marsio at the Eighteenth session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Botswana, presenting Wiki Loves Living Heritage


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