CEE/Newsletter/Newsroom/Wiki Loves Monuments 2022 in Ukraine: challenges, awards

antanana, a member of Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine organising team

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Wiki Loves Monuments 2022 in Ukraine: challenges, awards

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This year's edition of Wiki Loves Monuments was the most difficult one to organise for the team due to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine starting February 24, 2022. The team had internal debates whether to have a contest at all, and if yes -- in which format. It was one of those cases when "damned if you do [celebrating culture when people are dying every day? uploading pictures with coordinates, so Russian rockets can get a better aim?], damned if you do not [so many buildings destroyed, we need to preserve at least something]". The organising team decided that only pictures and videos taken before February 24, 2022, would be accepted, as with martial law in place it was important to take into consideration both the participants’ safety and national security. These created challenges – fewer participants were able to take part (one had to have Internet access, have an archive of photos etc), lower quality and quantity of submissions, and a bigger effort than usual to check uploads. This was also the first year that Ukraine was not taking part in the international contest, as the international team decided to allow pictures of Russian cultural heritage to compete.

Even with these limitations almost 300 participants uploaded around 14,000 images, illustrating over 5,300 monuments, including 351 monuments depicted for the first time.

This year, as usual the top 10 pictures were awarded, as were the top 10 contributors by number of monuments pictured. The winner in the latter category, Posterrr, submitted more than 2000 pictures of 1802 monuments. Also a winning picture in each of the 27 regions of Ukraine was awarded, as well as top contributors in each region of Ukraine -- awarding regionally also helps to promote the contest locally, and helps connecting with local authorities and partners. Also, the top 10 most active newcomers were awarded -- even with limitations in place, there were more than 177 new participants. For the 4th time winners of best videos of cultural monuments were awarded. And for the 5th time -- winners in Jewish Heritage of Ukraine Special Award.

Three new special awards were introduced this year: 1) a special award for pictures of cultural monuments from Kharkiv; 2) a special award for pictures of "less known monuments of Ukraine"; 3) a special category "Photographic Film".

On May 20, 2023, there was an awards ceremony organised -- the first ever truly hybrid event for Wikimedia Ukraine. Due to safety precautions the number of attendees was limited, and people had to register beforehand (it was important to know the number of participants to provide enough space in a nearby bomb shelter). 40 people joined the event offline and online.

The new year brings new conversations and challenges. What worked for 2022 does not seem to be sustainable, and it is not clear how to document and preserve pictures and videos of cultural monuments when the country is under heavy attacks, and how not to do it, when more and more sites are getting destroyed.

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