Hi Oarabile,
Expanding and enhancing connections and relations with museums (especially
outstanding ones like the Apartheid Museum) here in South Africa is
definitely on Wikimedia ZA's to do list. I have not talked to that museum
directly my self as I am located in Cape Town but I have talked to the
Natural History Museum and they seem open to building a strong relationship
with the local Wiki community. I suspect the same would likely be true of
the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.
I think there are two likely reasons why the Apartheid Museum is so
sensitive about photographs.
1. Fear that too much flash photography by museum goers will damage
exhibits
2. Unclear copyright policies of material hosted and/or owned by
government departments (I think this is a lesser issue that largely sits at
the back of peoples minds)
The first one is easy to get around if it is a group of Wikimedians coming
in for a special behind the scenes GLAM event similar to the Ice Age event
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/British_Museum/Ice_Age_art>that
the UK Chapter hosted. The second one I think is a lesser problem that can
be got around in the short term through simple relationship building and
outreach. In the long term it has deeper implications for access to data
(for example) and other material from government departments that involves
questions around open data and developing a clear government policy around
copyright issues of its own material, this is more complex.
Cheers,
Douglas.
On 6 June 2013 00:27, Oarabile Mudongo <mudongo.oarabile(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Greetings Fellow Wikipedians
I happened to visit the Apartheid Museum in South Africa this week and i
must say it is one of the few museums Ii have visited in my life with so
much vital asserts and information that the future generations of this
world would really need for tomorrow.It is also one of the museums that are
so emotional due to the documentaries you see playing on the screens and
generally the pictures of how people lived during Apartheid time, because
of the vast information found from within the Museum which i think from my
own perspective my worry lies much in the issue of *COPY RIGHT.*
*
*
"The Apartheid Museum in South Africa is read through the lens of a
condition of 'prepossession', where histories of trauma continue to haunt a
site while manifesting effectively through spatial ambiguities, which
lead to an experience of 'empathetic unsettledness'. Paradoxes concerning
the provenance of the building and its location are discussed. An analysis
follows of changing registers of spatiality through selected key areas of
the complex, with reference to Henri Lefebvre's analysis of alternative
experiences of space. His notion of 'lived' space is applicable to trauma
architecture as discussed by concentration camp researcher Wolfgang Sofsky.
It is argued that the building critically performs a content which exceeds
the limits of representation, thus engendering a sense of embodied unease.
Further complications include the appropriation of suffering in dialectical
tension with a moving commemoration of apartheid iniquities".*
*
*
*
I tried getting some photos of some of the things i thought they could
benefit us a movement and share them on Wikimedia Commons maybe also for
community engagement projects such as JoburgpediA,Wiki Loves Monuments and
other GLAM projects but i was denied such an opportunity.I was seriously
hurt and just let down.May i kindly recommend you to keep good partnership
with the museum and try lobby for free copy right for easier sharing of
their resources on Wikipedia and its sister projects.
Kind Regards
--
*Oarabile Joseph Mudongo*
*Cellphone: **+26774899486 / +26774131307\*
*mudongo.oarabile(a)gmail.com*
*mudongo.oarabile(a)yahoo.com*
*Wikipedia Volunteer/Editor @ Wikimedia Foundation*
**
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Douglas Ian Scott
司道格
Skype: douglas0scott
South African mobile number: +27 (0)79 515 872