Aleksandra Strzelichowska
Senior Adviser Online Marketing & Events , Europeana Foundation
Marijke Everts
Campaign Coordination and Administrative Assistant , Europeana Foundation
Our annual GIF-making contest has now been running for seven years, with its profile and audience participation growing each year. The 2020 edition was no exception, and in this post, we take a look at the achievements of this year’s competition.
GIF IT UP challenges people to use openly licensed digitised cultural heritage material to produce unique GIFs and share them online. It encourages audiences to engage with digital cultural heritage in new and creative ways, and extends the reach of the openly licensed material in Europeana.eu and our partners collections. Read on to find out more about this year’s competition!
In addition to our regular partners DPLA, Trove and DigitalNZ, this year we were excited to welcome two new partners, Japan Search and DAG Museums. Japan Search gives access to digitised collections from cultural institutions across Japan, and Kolkata’s DAG Museums collects 20th century artists from India. The superb content and active participation of both partners brought a more international flavour to this year’s contest.
The competition was also covered in media outlets from various countries, extending the reach of the competition even further. This year, GIF IT UP was covered in Daily Art Magazine, Vien , Club Innovation, EuropaPress, Eldiario.es, Nobbot, Netart, vagabondageautourdesoi and Curationist.
via GIPHY from Japan Search
In 2020 we had an amazing 165 entries from 31 countries around the world, including Mexico, Latvia, Brazil, Italy, India, USA and Japan. 175 artworks were remixed from 62 cultural heritage institutions including the Wellcome Collection, Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Rijksmuseum, and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The public voted for their favourite GIFs in five categories, with the winners receiving gift certificates and free online DailyArt courses. The other prizes were awarded by our jury members from DailyArt, GIPHY and TransMedia Catalonia. You can see this year's winning entries on the GIF IT UP website.
via GIPHY from Japan Search
In previous years, we have run physical GIF-making workshops, for example at a Frankfurt Book Fair. While it was impossible to run such events this year, we organised online workshops at the Creative Commons Summit and with DAG Museums to encourage people to take part in the competition. The online format has been successful in teaching people how to create GIFs, and is something that we’d love to continue doing in the future. You can also access online resources for making gifs on the GIF IT UP website.
If you would like to join next year’s GIF IT UP competition as a partner and see your collections used in wonderful ways, get in touch at gifitup@europeana.eu.
