LABoral Centre for Art and Industrial Creation and Wikiesfera are jointly developing Documenta Asturies, a project aimed at identifying, documenting and raising the profile of content relating to Asturias on Wikimedia projects (primarily Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons) through a participatory process involving local associations and stakeholders.
The initiative stems from the observation that a significant part of Asturias’ cultural, social and historical heritage has a limited presence in the open digital environments that today constitute one of the main channels for accessing knowledge. In response to this situation, the project proposes working from within the region itself to incorporate local and community knowledge into freely accessible, open-source platforms.
The project is funded by the Regional Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urban Development, Housing and Citizens’ Rights, through the Directorate-General for Citizen Participation, Transparency, Sexual Diversity and LGTBI Affairs of the Principality of Asturias, and is being carried out in collaboration with Wikiesfera, a community specialising in open knowledge generation processes within Wikimedia.
Beyond content creation, Documenta Asturies seeks to strengthen local capacities and provide tools so that associations, groups and individual participants can play an independent role in the processes of documenting, preserving and disseminating cultural heritage in the open.
The project also incorporates a gender and intersectional perspective, both in the selection of content and in the participation of those involved, with the aim of contributing to a more diverse and balanced representation of knowledge about Asturias.
Participatory sessions:
Following an initial phase of engagement and assessment, the project is currently running a series of participatory sessions in various locations across Asturias, designed as spaces for meeting, collaborative mapping and a practical introduction to editing on Wikimedia. Each session combines a presentation of the project, a collective identification of relevant local content, an analysis of documentation needs, and an introduction to the editing criteria for Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.
So far, sessions have been held in Piloña, in partnership with the El Prial Association, and in Gijón, in collaboration with the Federation of Neighbourhood Associations of Gijón:
The next session will be:
- Wednesday 2 September, from 6.00 pm to 8.30 pm. Mieres – Town Hall.
The sessions form part of a wider process that will continue over the coming months with a permanent editing and support group, face-to-face and online training sessions, and various initiatives aimed at creating and improving content about Asturias on Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons.
The planned activities also include an edit-a-thon (a collaborative Wikipedia editing marathon), which will take place on Saturday 28 November at the Archive of Asturian Artists at LABoral Centre for Art and Industrial Creation.
The project will culminate in a public closing session and presentation of results on Tuesday 22 December at LABoral Centre for Art and Industrial Creation, where the content generated, the assessment carried out and the key lessons learnt and areas for
the process’s continuation will be shared.