Commons:Wiki Loves Art

Background

Wiki Loves Art was in February 2009 one of the first longer duration public events where photography and Wikipedia met each other. It was set up as a scavenger hunt and about 15 museums in New York and London were involved. Based on the lessons of this events (and what didn't work well, see the comparison at this blog post), in June 2009 Wiki Loves Art/NL was organized, where museums were involved in the decision what could be photographed, and under what conditions. This contest involved 43 museums through the Netherlands, an incredible success that meant the kickoff for many successful collaborations with Dutch institutions that continue still in 2015.

Since 2010, a Wiki Loves event was organized every year in the Netherlands - but with a focus on heritage outside the institutions: monuments (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015) or natural heritage (2014). Many countries joined in this effort: in 2013, 53 countries participated in Wiki Loves Monuments, and was the competition with more than 350.000 submissions for the third year in a row the world's largest photography competition.

Currently, we're investigating whether and how we can organize another Wiki Loves Art in February 2016 in the Netherlands. This will be then organized besides the by now 'traditional' Wiki Loves project in September.

Concept

The concept of Wiki Loves Art is quite flexible, but the core of the competition includes:

• Photography competition (primarily, different activities can be organized as well)
• 1 month
• Low threshold for participation
• Clear definition which objects participate in the contest (i.e. lists provided by the participating institutions)
• Only in participating institutions

Some other components of the concept are a little more open for discussion:

• Participating institutions can choose from a menu with 5-10 options on how they can participate
• In the Netherlands, we're aiming at ~100 participating institutions
• Professional support (~1 FTE for 6-9 months in the Netherlands) at the chapter to involve these institutions
• External financing (the vast majority of the budget will have to be non-movement funds)
• Fun and attractive prizes
• Good spread over the country: easy access
• Public events as part of the competition concept
• Promotion of the competition both through the participating institutions and Wikimedia
• Jury picks winning pictures
• Main category focuses on the best photo according to the following criteria: Technical quality, usefulness on Wikipedia and Originality
• Other categories can include, among others: Quantity (who submits photos from the largest number of different museums?), a special category for photos of the 'museum process' (describing how a museum works, and not a specific piece of art) mutually exclusive with the main category and 'most welcoming museum' (based on the evaluation survey with photographers).
• Primary focus on underexposed (parts of) collections

Goals

The goals of Wiki Loves Art (from the Wikimedia perspective) are quite diverse, which is possible by the combination of aiming at a public audience, a connection with content and a focus on collaboration:

• Material that would otherwise be hard to get:
  • Because of intellectual property rights (copyright)
  • Because there is no available capacity at the institution to digitize
  • Findability (unclear what is on the piece of art, hard to use material)
  • Technically challenging
  • 3D objects from multiple angles
• Making people familiar with contributing to Wikimedia and/or the use of free licenses:
  • (Participating) organizations
    • Small institutions which otherwise would be hard to collaborate with
    • Larger institutions where a low threshold collaboration can be set up this way, building trust and an possibility for future collaborations in other ways
  • Photographers (participants and non-participants) that have an interest in heritage collections
  • Artists (alive) and their heirs (if deceased)
  • The general audience (potential participants)
• Attracting new users for Wikimedia projects! We hope of course that participants in the contest will stick around because they get energized by it, and are now familiar with contributing.
• Support function: Because of its broad setup, Wiki Loves Art is a good start for other projects within the same theme, together with specific institutions or in general:
  • Writing projects
  • Video
  • 3D?
• Data! All participating institutions have to bring in lists of participating objects, we can include these objects, together with the provided metadata into (for example) WikiData!

Ambitions

Please note that these are ambitions for the Netherlands. Every country is very different, and should aim for their own skies!

• 100 participating institutions, spread through the country. This makes participation easy for photographers;
• 250 participating photographers, of who at least 125 never contributed to Wikimedia before;
• 8000 submitted photos, of which XX are marked as good quality photo after six months, according to the standards of Wikimedia Commons;
• 4% of the participants that make their first edit/upload during the competition, will make at least one other edit in the 6 months after the competition.
• 25 'events' connected to the contest with at least 5 participants each.
• At least XX publications either, available either through a predefined news aggregator, or in print media.
• 50 modern, 2-dimensional works of art 'liberated' through a photo under a free license.

Not part of the ambitions in the Netherlands, but possible impact:

• Follow-up collaborations with institutions;
• Other countries organizing the competition as well
• Visitors on the project page/website
• Tweets/retweets/audience/facebook likes etc.

A la carte activities

A lesson from 2009 was that institutions are not one size fits all - the possibilities are different, but also the conditions under which they would like to participate. Before you know, you end up in a jungle of different lists of conditions for photographers, each accommodating the museum.

Because participating should remain easy and fun, we would like to limit the ways museums can participate to a small number of 'templates': a la carte. Institutions can pick templates from a menu, and specify a few house rules besides that. With this combination we would like to keep things understandable, but also flexible for the instutions.

The templates below are based on the 2009 competition in the Netherlands. They are named after a Dutch museum that implemented it successfully.

Tropenmuseum-template

The most traditional and obvious template. The institution provides a list of objects that can be photographed and are cleared from copyright. The museum offers free access to the photographers that participate in the competition (possibly under certain conditions). This template is perfect to aim for a theme, to guide photographers to unusual objects in the museum with a special meaning with a dedicated tour/route.

Van Gogh-template

Especially suitable for museums where photography is normally not allowed, or under very strict conditions. The museum offers a number of (free) dedicated tours to the participating photographers, which they can sign up for. During these tours (for example outside regular opening hours) there is an exclusive opportunity to make photos, without the regular audience in the way, and with good equipment (tripods etc). The museum can control the group, and therefore can guarantee safety and security. Also very suitable for private collections.

ING Art Gallery-template

Especially relevant to institutions with art of living artists. Especially with contemporary art, intellectual property rights of the artist can form an obstacle - they have to provide permission for photographing the works. Thee institution will connect with the artists that are in their collection (or their heirs) and acquires the necessary permissions (supported with expertise and sample letters by the contest organizers). The institution provides a list of objects where the permission has be acquired, which can finally be photographed and uploaded under a free license. Becauce these institutions often acquire works from these artists, there might be a motivation to allow the museum these permissions. This template can be a good motivation for institutions to finally make examples of work from famous artists legally available. Also very suitable for private collections of contemporary art.

Small museum-template

Very suitable for smaller institutions with active volunteers and local heritage. Access to the objects is key in this template: where objects are normally visible behind glass, or otherwise hard to photograph, the institutions try to help the photographers to make qualitatively good photos. For example by opening up their showcases: the staff members go the extra mile to get great pictures on Wikipedia!

Boymans van Beuningen-template

Especially suitable for institutions that have besides their main exhibition also an interesting building or a rich repository. Besides the activity in one of the other models, the institution also organizes several activities where tours 'behind the scenes' are provided. This tells more about the background of the museum (building), and shows more than what regular visitors would normally get to see.

The above templates form a first inventory based on success stories from 2009. Examples that were well received by the participating photographers and/or the institutions. Eventually each country could provide a menu of 5-10 templates that they can well support with their organization, and that work well in their cultural context.

Requirements

A first inventory, suggests that the following means should be provided to organize an ambitious competition.

Financial

The following items should be covered financially or in-kind:

• Professional support (incl. overhead)
• Travel and meeting costs for volunteers (organizer meetings, jury meeting, meetings with partners and participating institutions)
• Prizes for the winners
• Prize ceremony
• Items to give away to participants at events to promote the contest and the Wikimedia projects
• Thankyou-items for the volunteers
• Leaflets etc to be spread through the participating institutions
• ...

Hours

This is a first attempt to an inventory in time, specified by who does what. The more is being done by volunteers, the better. But be realistic. Depending on availability, more work could be shifted to participating institutions or umbrella organizations.

Volunteers

Set up project plan, develop a concept specific to the country

Prepare a core of documentation, to provide to interested institutions

Documentation for participating photographers

Prepare press releases

Marketing towards online fora etc.

Active support at events during and after the competition

Preparation & support of the jury process

Jury duty

Professional support

Contacting and maintaining contact with institutions (huge chunk of work)

Overview & coordination of events during and after the competition

Coordination press

General support of the competition

Financial management

Participating institutions and umbrella organizations

Contacting & maintaining contact with contest coordinator

Internal coordination of (im)possibilities, legal work

Preparation of participation by the institution, depending on the selected template

Marketing from the institution towards (potential) visitors

Active approach of the (local) press

Organizing events during the competition (depending on the selected template)

Organizing prize ceremony (only one institution)

Organizing the judging of dedicated special awards from the institution (if appliccable)

To be discussed

Follow-up towards the participating institutions

Reporting

Follow-up towards participating photographers

Follow-up activities (exhibition, publications etc.)

Challenges

Some issues to keep in mind while organizing:

• We should make sure that a very significant part of the submitted photos are really useful towards Wikipedia:
  • Quality of the image
  • Relevance
  • Sufficiently described
  • Good infrastructure to get the photos to the articles

Links, more information

• Wiki Loves Art 2009 USA/UK:
  • Project page
• Wiki Loves Art 2009 NL:
  • website
  • Commons page 2009 NL
  • Evaluation?
• Wiki Loves Art Belgium in 2016

• Wiki Loves Monuments
• Wiki Loves Earth