GLAM/Newsletter/May 2014/Contents/Mexico report
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Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art donates 357 photos; partnership with Museo Soumaya; Iberocoop edit-a-thon
Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art donates 357 photos related to artisans and their work
The Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art (FOFA) is a New York-based non profit organization which works closely with the Museo Estatal de Arte Popular de Oaxaca to promote the handcrafts and folk art of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It especially looks to work with younger generations of artisans, sponsoring sales and competitions in order to keep these traditions alive. These efforts now include collaborating with Wikipedia starting with a first batch of 357 photographs. Most valuable of these are photos of artisans, especially better-known names such as Doña Rosa, who made the barro negro pottery of San Bartolo Coyotepec popular with a new finishing technique and Apolinar Aguilar Velasco, whose workshop produced the sword used by the title character in Conan the Barbarian.
New partnership of Wikimedia México with Museo Soumaya
Wikimedia Mexico start an agreement of collaboration with Museo Soumaya, a private museographic institution belonging to Fundación Carlos Slim. Their collections are wide and holds works by many of the best known European, New Spain and Mexico artists from the 15th to the 20th century. It contains a large collection of casts of sculptures by Auguste Rodin. The Museo Soumaya has a collection of over 66,000 pieces of art and contains part of the collection of Carlos Slim and his late wife Soumaya, after whom the museum was named. Also, the new venue of Museo Soumaya, a shiny silver cloud-like structure reminiscent of a Rodin sculpture, was designed by the Mexican architect Fernando Romero and engineered with Ove Arup and Frank Gehry.
The firt activity of this new partnering of the mexican chapter will be an edit-a-thon next June 7th in the mezzanine of the museum and will be supported by researchers of the own museum.
Iberocoop edit-a-thon of the Spanish Exile
Under the Wikimedia Iberocoop initiative, Wikimedia Mexico, Wikimedia Argentina and Wikimedia Spain are preparing a simulthaneous edit-a-thon about Spanish Exile next June 14th. The venues of the event will be the Cultural Center of Spain in Mexico and in Buenos Aires.
