— Overview
The GLAM programme made significant strides in 2024, despite changes to the team and ways of working. A major achievement was creating a new community space at the Kunsthaus Biel Centre d'art Bienne (KBCB), which quickly became an active hub for workshops and collaborative events. This complemented ongoing partnerships with institutions like the Swiss National Library and the Swiss Archive of the Performing Arts (SAPA), the latter of which resulted in over 11,000 new images being added to Wikimedia Commons.
As the year progressed, the programme increasingly focused on archives and decolonisation projects, setting the stage for these to be key themes in 2025. This included work on archiving objects and 3D projects, as well as multiple decolonisation initiatives in collaboration with partners like Supsi and the National Museum Zurich. The programme also strengthened its international presence through successful campaigns like International Museum Day 2024, which brought together the International Council of Museums (ICOM), multiple Wikimedia chapters, and GLAM partners in a comprehensive series of contests, panel discussions, and educational video releases.
— Highlight activity
New Community Space and GLAM Meetups
One of the significant achievements of 2024 was establishing a new community space at the Kunsthaus Biel Centre d'art Bienne (KBCB). The space quickly became a vibrant hub for collaborative knowledge-sharing through monthly GLAM meetings held on the last Friday of each month. These meetings bring together artists, Wikimedians, and cultural professionals to co-create and co-edit Wikipedia content, fostering a unique environment where artistic and digital cultures intersect.
A highlight of this meeting series was the ninth gathering on November 29, which focused on the theme of faces and masks. The event featured a presentation by curator and artist Ila Wingen, who studied in Paris and has expertise in facial representation in art. What made this meeting particularly special was its role in launching a new cooperation project with Nairobi, connecting Swiss GLAM initiatives with African art perspectives.
The event exemplified the potential of the KBCB space to facilitate multilingual and cross-cultural dialogue. Nearly 50 participants joined both in person and virtually, including Rose Musyoki from Nairobi (who writes for ArtNetwork Africa) and Ivonne Gonzalez, along with members of the French and German Wikipedia communities.
This successful collaboration sets the stage for future cross-cultural projects, with plans to present the results at the next Wikimania. The KBCB community space, secured through 2025, will continue to serve as a vital platform for such partnerships that bridge cultural gaps while expanding free knowledge on Wikimedia projects.
— Key programme activities
- Built upon our partnership with the Swiss National Library with a GLAM-on-Tour event at the library and organised a second GLAM-on-Tour event at Château Chillon in collaboration with "Les Sans PagEs," focusing on the history of witch trials in the canton of Vaud.
- Organised an edit-a-thon with the Swiss National Museum where the museum collections could inspire participants to create and update Wikipedia articles.
- Created a “Mind the Gap” video series on archive gaps and how to reduce them on Wikipedia to develop a more sustainable future for archives.
- Continued the WikiNeocomensia workshops and professional meetups for GLAM professionals and partners.
- Began a collaboration with the Richterich Foundation around archiving for contemporary art.
- Strengthened our relationship with FemNetz by attending the FemNetzCon 2024 in Hamburg, Germany.
- Built upon our partnership with the Swiss Archives for the Performing Arts (SAPA) to promote archives and data about the performing arts in Switzerland through a series of edit-a-thons, which resulted in the upload of over 11,000 images related to Swiss performance art to Wikimedia Commons.
- Supported International Archives Week 2024 with the Association of Swiss Archivists around the theme "#CyberArchives" with an online panel about archive gaps.
- Organised a global campaign for International Museum Day 2024, collaborating with ICOM, other Wikimedia chapters and GLAM partners.
- As part of the Swiss OpenGLAM working group, planned and participated in the 2024 GLAMhack event, which focused on decolonisation and how people impact culture as they move around the world. We also began planning the 2025 edition in Winterthur with the Foundation for Art, Culture and History.
- Worked with Programme Innovation to restore and begin developing version 2.0 of the GLAM statistical tool to enhance stability and improve performance.
- Supported Classroom to the Amazon, a Swiss-Brazilian initiative aimed at bringing more knowledge about the Amazon to Wikimedia platforms.
- Launched an archiving of objects and 3D project spanning late 2024 and early 2025.
- Advanced multiple decolonisation projects, including the event focusing on faces and masks as a prelude to the Nairobi project and a research project with Iolanda Pensa in collaboration with Supsi and the National Museum Zurich.
— Programme impact
- The partnership with the Swiss Archive of the Performing Arts yielded tangible results, with over 11,000 images of Swiss performance art being uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, substantially expanding public access to Swiss cultural heritage.
- Our campaign for International Museum Day 2024 demonstrated successful multi-stakeholder collaboration, bringing together ICOM, multiple Wikimedia chapters, and GLAM partners to create comprehensive educational content through contests, panel discussions, and a video series.
- The new community space partnership with KBCB in Biel has created a sustainable hub for community engagement, providing a free venue for workshops and events while strengthening local partnerships.
— Looking ahead
In 2025, the GLAM Programme will continue to focus on museum transformation in alignment with ICOM’s new museum strategy, which focuses on civil society, sustainability, disruption and digitalisation. The ongoing wars, uncertainties and environmental disasters have highlighted the importance of heritage and open knowledge. Through a series of events and video releases, the GLAM programme will address the challenges for museums in the future, as well as new forms of archiving and creative knowledge bases. We will also continue our focus on decolonising collections and encouraging inclusive narratives. We aim to broaden the cultural network by reaching out to smaller GLAM institutions and artists' collectives for more diverse knowledge creation processes.
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Photo credits
- Château Chillon à Veytaux. Photo by Martin Thurnherr CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Kloster Allerheiligen (All Saints Abbey). At the abbey's museum, a mini-GLAM event on Peruvian Moche Culture was held. Photo by Roland zh - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Museo del sitio, Teotihuacán. Mask and original mould. Photo by Wolfgang Sauber — own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Lake Lucerne from Fronalpstock (Schwyz). Entry in Wiki Loves Switzerland 2022. Photo by Etzelous - own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- The Universitätsbibliotheki in Bern. Photo by Martin Thurnherr, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Group picture at the FemNetz event in Hamburg. Photo by Elena Ternovaja - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
- A map of Swiss Archives. Photo by Amandine (WMCH) — own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Château Chillon à Veytaux. Photo by Martin Thurnherr CC BY-SA 4.0.
- The church of San Abbondio, Gentilino (Canton of Tessin / Switzerland). Photo by Hadi— own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Lauterbrunnen. Entry in Wiki Loves Switzerland 2022. Photo by Dini78 - own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.