Wiki Loves Safeguarding Living Heritage in Europe

Wiki Loves Living Heritage is a wiki initiative that pays tribute to the 20th anniversary of the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The global campaign has been launched in March 2023.

The European Network of Focal Points for the 2003 Convention (ENFP) has played a significant role in launching the campaign together with the Avoin GLAM network and various other Wikimedia communities. To celebrate and make visible the vivid dynamics of living heritage in Europe the ENFP is launching a photo contest for the whole Europe.

The theme of the photo contest is safeguarding living heritage. Through this campaign the ENFP wishes to contribute to the documenting of not only living heritage but also of the tremendous importance of people making efforts to take care, transmit and safeguard the living heritage of humanity. We encourage to make visible heritage bearers and practitioners, the diversity of communities and methods of practicing and transmitting intangible cultural heritage.

In practice this could mean photos of people practicing or learning their craft, performing music or dance in an event, or at the rehearsal, in a workshop, in a class-room or in a natural environment vital for practicing some forms of heritage. It could be a heritage community ‘behind the scenes’ during the preparation of their carnival or procession or other event: sewing, constructing, training, or meeting together. Or what about grandparents sharing living heritage with children, or youth becoming initiated in a heritage practice? The possibilities are endless!

Wiki Loves Living Heritage is a participatory, community-driven initiative calling on heritage practitioners, Wikimedia volunteers and cultural institutions around the world to document and celebrate their living heritage. It seeks to combine awareness raising and documenting activities – online and on the ground – to enhance the safeguarding of living heritage worldwide.

The contest is open from 5th of June to 15th of September 2023. We hope for colleagues to spread the news of the contest in their own networks and choose the five best candidates for the jury. The best photos will be announced on 17th October on the 20th anniversary UNESCO 2003 Convention through a media campaign.

How to participate

Spread the news about the contest in in your country! Use hashstag #WikiLovesLivingHeritage
Take and upload photos on safeguarding living heritage to Wikimedia Commons. Download through country pages found on this link. Are there heritage elements missing from your country page? Ask us for help!
Why not organize a national photo contest to boost up the campaign? More info here.
Make sure all photos are taken with the consent of the people. Read more about ethical online sharing here.
Five best photos under the theme “safeguarding living heritage” will be presented from each country to the final selection.
The ENFP steering group together with Wikimedia and Open GLAM specialists will make a final selection. The photo of each participating country that best represents the theme of the campaign will be selected, as well as the three best photos of the whole contest.

Rules of the Contest

Timetable: The contest starts on 5th of June 2023 ad ends on 15th of September 2023
The photo will be published on Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Foundation’s free online multimedia repository, with Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 or more open license.
The photo follows best practices in ethical sharing. Photos submitted in the campaign must at least have the consent of the individuals or entities depicted in the photo
The photo may have been taken at any time, but it will be downloaded to Wikimedia Commons during the competition period 5th June to 15th September.
Photos participating in the competition must be openly licensed or free of copyright. When you upload photos you've taken yourself, you give them an open license. If you upload photos taken by others, you can refer to an existing open license or license new photos together with the photographer
The participant agrees to give their email address when registering with Wikimedia Commons so that they can be contacted if they would win.
Members of the Jury cannot participate in the contest.
The jury shall have the right to apply the rules if necessary.

Note

All Wikimedia Commons requirements apply to the competition photos. Photos must be either in the public domain or licensed under free and open-source licenses, such as Creative Commons licenses. Their use must not be restricted by other means, for example, by a watermark. The object of the photo must not be subject to copyright either, but a copyrighted work may appear in a small or insignificant part of the image. Technically low-quality photos are discarded. Read more about the practices of Wikimedia Commons.

Wiki Loves Living Heritage places a strong emphasis on ethical sharing practices for the photos submitted to the contest. This includes obtaining consent from the individuals and communities depicted in the photos, even if their intellectual property is not protected by copyright. Distribution of sacred or secret subjects without documented authorization is strictly prohibited. To learn more about best practices for ethical photo sharing, please refer to our guidelines.

About using the photos

All photos or videos submitted during the competition are stored in Wikimedia Commons, where they remain publicly accessible after the competition. The images are licensed under the open Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license, which allows others to share and modify the photos, as long as they provide attribution to the creator and release any derivative works under the same license. The creator retains the copyright of their photos or videos and can continue to make use of them.

The Jury

The European Network of Focal Points for the 2003 Convention (ENFP) steering group together with Wikimedia and Open GLAM specialist will make the final decisions

More information

Learn more about the campaign at the website Wiki Loves Living Heritage
Watch a video to learn more about the campaign (10 mins, subtitles in EN, FR, ES) or the recording of the launch event.
Get in touch with your national ICH focal points and Wikimedia affiliates to see what activities you could do together during the year! We are happy to help in connecting.
See the card deck on ethical sharing.
Subscribe to the Wiki Loves Living Heritage newsletter to stay updated about all activities!