In the last 15 years, the creative scene in Douala (Cameroon) has been documented on Wikipedia – the widest online collaborative encyclopaedia – which has largely contributed to give access to the cultural richness of the city through articles, images and multimedia files and data. This article focuses specifically on Wikipedia content about contemporary public art in Douala produced in the frame of the project “Culture and Safety in Africa”[1] (2015-2018). The project aimed at improving and correcting the limited and biased information about African countries, with a specific emphasis on their local artistic and cultural practices. At the end of January 2018, the project produced and improved a total of 95 articles on Wikipedia in English (n. 46) and French (n. 49), 118 images uploaded on Wikimedia Commons, 24 entries on Wikidata and 3 new categories. Content was specifically related to: · Public artworks in Douala; · African and international contemporary artists working on urban practices in African cities; · Meaningful terminology needed to comprehend the African contemporary art scene; · Bibliographic references related to African cities; · Portraits of artists, and pictures related to their artworks and cultural events in Douala. This analysis focuses on the articles created and improved by the research and it quantitatively assesses their impact after three years from their first publication or update. Outcomes of the evaluation allows to observe: · a significant growth in the visualization of the articles by the community of readers demonstrating an increased interest in relation to topics covered by the project; · an increase in the number of changes to each article and the number of editors involved, showing the collaborative nature of Wikipedia; · an increased number of articles whose quality has been assessed independently by the Wikipedia community - according to Wikipedia article quality grading scheme - showing a higher engagement by the Wikipedia Community on the content produced. This article argues that Wikipedia can be a powerful tool to increase knowledge and visibility of African cultural heritage. The assessment of the documentation of public art produced on Wikipedia shed light on its potentialities in decolonizing cultural heritage, widening the accessibility of local production, and fostering international collaboration. Pensa, Iolanda and Pucciarelli, Marta and Douala Bell, Marilyn and Nibbeling, Xandra and Siegenthaler, Fiona and Adukaite, Asta and de la Chapelle, Maud and Verschuren, Kamiel and Grandin, Lucas (2017) Public Art in Africa. Art et transformations urbaines à Douala /// Art and Urban Transformations in Douala. In: Pensa, Iolanda, (ed.) vuesDensemble . MetisPresses, Genève.

1. Titolo principale della presentazione
Digital public art: assessing the impact of
documenting public art in Douala on
Wikipedia.
7th International Visual Methods Conference 2021
Marta Pucciarelli & Iolanda Pensa
Institute of Design (SUPSI)
25 gennaio 2022
1

2. Titolo principale della presentazione

3. Titolo principale della presentazione
WIKIPEDIA
40 million articles in more than 300
language versions*
500 million readers
open, collaborative and free
encyclopedia
* https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects
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4. Titolo principale della presentazione
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Mobile
Acces to
knowledge
(2012-
2014)
Culture
and safety
in Africa
(2015-18)
Douala Flow, Roberto Paci Dalò 2017
Map of public art in Douala, SUPSI 2017

5. Titolo principale della presentazione
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Type of
content
Creation
of new
articles
Improvem
ent of
existing
articles
Total
Wikipedia Categories 3 3
Wikipedia in English Article 24 22 46
Wikipedia in French Article 22 26 49
Wikimedia
Commons
Images 118 - 118
Categories on
Wikimedia
Commons
Categories 29 11 40
Wikidata Dataset 10 14 24
Total 205 76 281
Content produced or updated on Wikipedia
and Wikimedia Projects
• Public artworks in Douala;
• Cameroonian and international contemporary artists
• Cultural heritage topics and terminology about public art and African
contemporary art;
• Bibliographic references;
• Portraits of artists and pictures related to their artworks and cultural
events in Douala.

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FROM 2018 TO 2021
EVALUATION
Articles’
views
Edits and
editors
Quality
assessement

7. Titolo principale della presentazione
Interest of readers about public art in Africa
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0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Created Articles Improved articles
8%
44%
92%
56%
Total views
2018 2021
Created articles
N. 46
Total views: 56525
2018: 4557 views
2021: 51968 views
Improved articles
N. 42
Total views: 4 925 714
2018: 2 153 648 views
2021: 2 772 066 views

9. Titolo principale della presentazione
Collaboration on improving the articles produced
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8.66
13.58
48.77
5.52
8.82
24.61
PUBLIC ARTWORKS IN
DOUALA (20)
ARTISTS WORKING IN
DOUALA (50)
CULTURAL HERITAGE
TOPIC (13)
Average of edits and editors for category of
articles
Edits (average) Editors (average)

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Quality assessment of the articles
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13. Titolo principale della presentazione
2021
56,32%
assessed
articles
(49 out of 87)
2018
41,37%
assessed
articles
(36 out of 87)
2021
Wikipedia community quality assessment
From no quality
assessment to start class
+ 13 articles
2018

14. Titolo principale della presentazione
CONCLUSION
• Wikipedia can be a powerful tool to increase knowledge and visibility of African cultural heritage.
• The assessment of the documentation of public art produced on Wikipedia shed light on its potentialities in:
- decolonizing cultural heritage
- widening the accessibility of local production
- fostering international collaboration
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15. Titolo principale della presentazione
Thanks
Marta Pucciarelli
Istitute of Design, SUPSI
marta.pucciarelli@supsi.ch
25/01/22
15
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Marta Pucciarelli and Iolanda Pensa, SUPSI.