Winners announced for the Wiki Loves Safeguarding Living Heritage photo contest

The winner for the contest is a photo from Austria depicting the tradition of social practice of outing in the greenery of wineyards in northern Weinviertel by Renate Stigler.

“With this campaign we want to highlight the diversity of heritages in the Europe of today and the various ways different communities are safeguarding them. The winning photo beautifully illustrates the knowhow related to nature and the sharing and transmission of knowledge from one generation to the other,” says the international jury.

The second prize of the competition goes to Andreas Kreitmaier's photo from Germany. Kreitmaeir's photo represents the Historical Documentary Play “Landshut Wedding of 1475“ which is part of the German National Inventory of Intagible Heritage. The photo skilfully captures the joy of the child depicted in the photo, showcasing the importance of children's intangible heritage.

The third prize is given to Ville Kurki's photo from Finland on sauna bathing. The jury comments that Kurki's photo of a traditional sauna healer highlights the importance of women as heritage practiotioners as well as showcases the revitalizing of sauna healing, nowadays a rarer aspect of otherwise very common Finnish sauna heritage.

New kind of cooperation

The contest centered around the theme of safeguarding living heritage. Through this campaign, The European Network of Focal Points for the 2003 Convention (ENFP) aimed not only to document living heritage, but also to underscore the immense significance of individuals who dedicate themselves to preserving, transmitting, and safeguarding our shared human heritage. The competition strived to highlight heritage bearers, practitioners, the diverse array of communities involved, and the various methods employed in the practice and transmission of intangible cultural heritage.

Wiki Loves Living Heritage's photo contest was a collaborative, community-driven initiative that blended online and on-the-ground activities. It activated hundreds of actors in the field of intangible heritage: focal points for the Convention, NGO’s, museums, practitioners and photographers.

The photo bank created as a result of this competition serves as a valuable resource for documenting and safeguarding Europe's intangible heritage. All of the photo's enrolled in the competition are now available for free use through Wikimedia Commons.

Global campaign

The global campaign Wiki Loves Living Heritage resulted in a great number of activities around the world during 2023. More than one hundred inventories of living heritage have been brought to wikidata to provide more accessibility to these inventories and more than 4 000 elements are now linking to these inventories in Wikidata. Events and photo contests have been organized in different parts of the world.

The global campaign has been initiated by the European network of focal points for the UNESCO 2003 Convention (ENFP) and AvoinGLAM and created by organizers around the world. It has been supported by Wikimedia Foundation, Council of Europe/ European Heritage Days, Workshop intangible heritage Flanders & Flemish Commission for UNESCO in Belgium, Quebec Council for Living Heritage, Finnish Heritage Agency, Dutch Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage, Culture Ireland and Federal Office of Culture of Switzerland.

More information

See all the countries winning photos and finalists on this link. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Living_Heritage/European_photo_contest/Winners

See all the photos in the contest by country

More about the global Wiki Loves Living Heritage campaign

More about European network of focal points for the UNESCO 2003 Convention (ENFP)

Leena Marsio, Finnish Heritage Agency leena.marsio(at)museovirasto.fi
Jorijn Neyrinck, Workshop Intangible Heritage jorijn.neyrinck(at)gmail.com
Susanna Ånäs, Avoin GLAM susanna.anas(at)gmail.com

Photo: Renate Stigler / Wikimedia Commons