Opening the doors of knowledge through art

Can you imagine seeing one of your photographs or illustrations exhibited in one of the most important museums in a city? Not everyone is familiar with that experience, but it must undoubtedly be a wonderful one. Moreover, sharing a fragment of a place that we found fascinating allows others to come closer, even briefly, to the sensations that nature and culture can evoke in us.

During the opening night of the exhibition Cultural Cartographies: Territory on Wikipedia, a very young visitor approached us to say that the photographs had made them feel like a foreigner in their own country. Many people agreed: where is this and why don’t I know about it? What is this celebration? Why don’t we know more about this culture? And we know this well: what is not known is not protected.

On December 8, the team concluded its first experience organizing a photography exhibition at the El Altillo Beni Museum in the city of Santa Cruz. The exhibition featured winning images from competitions such as Wiki Loves Earth in Bolivia and Wikimixtura Beni, as well as illustrations submitted to the first and second editions of the Ilustrémonos project, developed with students from the graphic design program at the University for Development and Innovation (UDI).

To bring this dream to life, we worked on the exhibition’s curation together with restorer Tatiana Suárez. In this way, we created a pathway of knowledge through images, complemented by links to articles on protected areas, national parks, animal species, cultural elements, and festivities of the Indigenous peoples of the lowlands. The exhibition was crowned by the oral traditions of these peoples, represented through illustrations of Bolivian legends.

Through 35 images by more than 15 national authors, seven illustrations, 40 articles, and three videos featuring photographs from various competitions, the territory—vast and diverse—was presented as a mosaic of natural and cultural elements. Likewise, the images, audiovisual materials, and different physical formats offered an approximation of the current representation of our territory on Wikipedia.

Thanks to this initiative, more than 5,100 people were able to appreciate the photographs and learn more about the culture of the country’s lowlands, as well as the different ways in which anyone can contribute to knowledge through Wikipedia. As part of the exhibition’s activities, Daniel Uria, coordinator at UDI, organized a guided tour with students to explore the project in greater depth. In addition, the university granted recognition to those whose works were selected for exhibition.

This level of participant involvement is central to our activities. In recent years, we have compiled more than 2,000 images of protected areas and developed projects through long deliberative processes together with organizations of Indigenous peoples and nations, including initiatives such as Wikimixtura, Titicaca edition, Views from the Chaco and Wikimixtura edition Afro-Bolivian culture. We have also supported the donation of images that portray, from the perspective of their protagonists, the Weenhayek, Chiquitana, and Guaraní cultures. In addition, there are now 31 new illustrations of Bolivian legends that are already being used in articles across different language editions of Wikipedia.

The illustrations created by a group of young people interested in editorial design are part of the motivation that drives the team: understanding artistic creation as a fundamental area of human development. As the instructor who accompanied this process, Sofia Mallo, noted, “the reward, in this case, is learning about a professional editorial design process.” It is also important to highlight that these illustrations are developed from an ethical understanding of cultural representation, since creating from this part of the world carries a cultural responsibility that requires research and clarity about what one seeks to communicate.

It is through these internal and external debates that we understand numbers to represent only one part of the work. At Wikimedistas de Bolivia, we believe that the greatest value lies in self-representation: how Indigenous peoples wish to be portrayed, what information they choose to share, and how the skills needed to build knowledge from our own realities are developed are central questions in the support we provide. In this way, communities are not only the subjects of images or information, but also their creative source.

We close this year with joy over the goals achieved and with an optimistic outlook for the years ahead, committed to navigating the uncertainties of the national and regional context while strengthening a community that continues to grow.