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Pilipinas Panorama Community/Cultural Heritage

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PILIPINAS PANORAMA
Cultural Heritage
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The Pilipinas Panorama Community is a thematic community based in Metro Manila, Philippines. It was founded in 2022 by Filipino Wikimedians advocating cultural heritage, history, language & ethnicity, art, freedom of panorama, and Wikimedia's Movement Strategy, contributing to expand the global availability of free knowledge.

Cultural Heritage and Wikimedia in the Philippines

Definition of cultural heritage

See also Cultural heritage

Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by society.[1]

Classifications of cultural heritage

Cultural heritage includes tangible culture (such as buildings, monuments, landscapes, books, works of art, and artifacts), intangible culture (such as folklore, traditions, language, and knowledge), and natural heritage (including culturally significant landscapes, and biodiversity).[2] The term is often used in connection with issues relating to the protection of Indigenous intellectual property.[3]

1) Cultural property

Marcelo H. Del Pilar Shrine, Bulakan, Bulacan in 2023

Cultural property includes the physical, or "tangible" cultural heritage, such as artworks. These are generally split into two groups of movable and immovable heritage. Immovable heritage includes buildings (which themselves may include installed art such as organs, stained glass windows, and frescos), large industrial installations, residential projects or other historic places and monuments. Moveable heritage includes books, documents, moveable artworks, machines, clothing, and other artifacts, that are considered worthy of preservation for the future. These include objects significant to the archaeology, architecture, science or technology of a specified culture.[2]

2) Intangible culture

Mass at the Feast of the Black Nazarene, Quiapo, Manila in 2020

Intangible cultural heritage consists of non-physical aspects of a particular culture, more often maintained by social customs during a specific period in history. The concept includes the ways and means of behavior in a society, and the often formal rules for operating in a particular cultural climate. These include social values and traditions, customs and practices, aesthetic and spiritual beliefs, artistic expression, language and other aspects of human activity. The significance of physical artifacts can be interpreted as an act against the backdrop of socioeconomic, political, ethnic, religious and philosophical values of a particular group of people. Naturally, intangible cultural heritage is more difficult to preserve than physical objects.

3) Natural heritage

View of Mount Isarog from Pili, Camarines Sur

Natural heritage is also an important part of a society's heritage, encompassing the countryside and natural environment, including flora and fauna, scientifically known as biodiversity, as well as geological elements (including mineralogical, geomorphological, paleontological, etc.), scientifically known as geodiversity. These kind of heritage sites often serve as an important component in a country's tourist industry, attracting many visitors from abroad as well as locally. Heritage can also include cultural landscapes (natural features that may have cultural attributes).

Initiatives in Wikimedia

1) Wiki Loves Monuments

See also Wiki Loves Monuments

Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) is a public photo competition around cultural heritage monuments, organized by Wikimedia chapters, groups and local Wikipedia volunteers. The public takes photos of monuments, upload those to Wikimedia Commons, and then they can be used in Wikipedia and elsewhere. The goal is to make the world's heritage monuments visible for the world wide public.

2) Wiki Loves Folklore

See also Wiki Loves Folklore

Wiki Loves Folklore (WLF) is an international photographic contest where the photographers can contribute media (photographs, video, and audio) about their local folk culture to Wikimedia Commons under free licenses to be used on Wikipedia and any other places with attribution. This photography contest is focused on folk culture of different regions, including folk dances, folk music, folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, folklore, and tradition, including ballads, folktales, fairy tales, legends, traditional song and dance, folk plays, games, seasonal events, calendar customs, folk arts, folk religion, mythology, etc. The campaign is targeted at protecting the world’s intangible cultural heritage.

3) Wiki Loves Earth

See also Wiki Loves Earth

Wiki Loves Earth (WLE) is an annual international photographic competition with the basic aim of collecting photos of natural heritage sites – such as nature reserves, landscape conservation areas, national parks, scenic/landscape areas, remarkable gardens, etc. – to illustrate articles in the worldwide free encyclopedia Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects. The focus is not only on sites of national importance, but also on those protected at the regional level, and on the widest variety of natural sites possible: forests, parks, gardens, rocks, caves, or whatever part of nature is protected in your country.

4) WikiProjects related to cultural heritage

List of active WikiProjects in the Philippines related to cultural heritage:

5) Photowalk projects

  • Self-initiative by a regular photographer as a Wikimedia Commons user
  • Locally organized photowalk in a particular place for a single or couple of days. It is usually organized by a user group or community serving as one of their project.
  • Long-term photowalk project with the objective of large-scale collection of media files e.g. Philippine Panorama Project

Impact of Wikimedia

  1. Wikipedia as free and open source of information about/related to cultural heritage in the Philippines
  2. Wikimedia Commons to collect freely usable media files featuring cultural heritage in the Philippines. The media file can be used for a Wikipedia article.
  3. Wikipedia article of a place as alternative to its supposed official website.

Since most of the towns in the Philippines have no official website, its Wikipedia article will serve its purpose as the primary go-to-website to explore the town virtually. In fact, a research in Italy and Germany discovered that making small changes in the town's Wikipedia article can hugely increase tourist revenue for small cities and large towns. The findings also suggest that it makes more sense for small cities to just update their Wikipedia pages, rather than employing marketing agencies or publishing glossy brochures inviting people to visit.[4] Tourism and thus cultural heritage share gains due to the impact of Wikimedia through community collaboration.

Importance of Freedom of Panorama (FOP)

In this generation, awareness in cultural heritage is likely most effective when being featured on the internet e.g. social media, blogs, online learning resources, etc. The circulation of photographs online raises curiosity and induce knowledge to the people, and thus has an impact in the promotion of cultural heritage. However, hindrance to publication of photographs varies to certain degrees according to the status of freedom of panorama (FOP) per country.

Among the websites which are used as repositories of media files is the Wikimedia Commons. Wikipedia in various language editions use media files from the Wikimedia Commons which were most likely featuring a certain cultural heritage. Thus, lack of FOP has an utmost negative effect on the promotion of cultural heritage via online web publication. This may also indirectly affect preservation initiatives due to the impending lack of promotion.

Cultural heritage preservation starts with people's awareness of their history and culture. The lack of FOP in the Philippines limits the promotion of cultural heritage and therefore the awareness of Filipinos in it. This is why the Pilipinas Panorama Community is pushing for the passage of Freedom of Panorama in the Philippines as an advocacy for cultural heritage preservation.

References

  1. ↑ Logan, William S. (2007). "Closing Pandora's Box: Human Rights Conundrums in Cultural Heritage". In Silverman, Helaine; Ruggles, D. Fairchild. Cultural heritage and human rights. New York, NY: Springer. ISBN 9780387713137. OCLC 187048155. 
  2. ↑ a b Ann Marie Sullivan, Cultural Heritage & New Media: A Future for the Past, 15 J. MARSHALL REV. INTELL. PROP. L. 604 (2016) https://repository.jmls.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1392&context=ripl
  3. ↑ "Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) (AITB)". Arts Law Centre of Australia. Retrieved 21 July 2021. 
  4. ↑ Improving Wikipedia Pages Can Wildly Increase Revenue For Cities. Forbes.com. Retrieved 23 December 2022.


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