GLAM/Newsletter/June 2025/Contents/Brazil report
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Expanding Data on Maranhão's Heritage
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Tilework is a fundamental part of the historical and cultural heritage of São Luís, the capital of Maranhão. The city was the only Brazilian capital founded by the French, in 1612, but by 1615 Portugal had regained control of the region. The presence of tiles throughout the city center is both characteristic and consistent, lending São Luís a unique beauty, so much so that it came to be known as the City of Tiles. In 1997, its Historic Center was declared a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site.
Faced with the ongoing deterioration and disappearance of façade tiles, as well as the urgent need to preserve the tile heritage of the state, Zelinda Machado de Castro Lima, a researcher of popular culture and author of several books and studies on Maranhão’s cultural traditions, launched the project Inventário do Patrimônio Azulejar do Maranhão (Inventory of the Tile Heritage of Maranhão). She was supported by architect Margareth Figueiredo and by Maria Leandro Cavalcante, who assumed the presidency of the Association of Friends of the Odylo Costa Filho Creativity Center after Zelinda.
The project initially set out to document only the tiles found in the historic center of São Luís. However, after identifying tiled surfaces in other neighborhoods, as well as in churches and museums, the inventory expanded, requiring three years (from 2004 to 2006) to be carried out in three parts: Inventory of the Tiles of São Luís, Inventory of the Tiles of the Island of São Luís, and Inventory of the Tiles of the Historic Cities of Maranhão. This resulted in a comprehensive record of identification and description, which was finally published in 2012.
The team also gathered detailed information on the tiles and their applications: where in the city they were located, the motifs they displayed, the patterns they formed, the techniques used in their production and decoration, their countries of origin, whether they covered entire façades or only portions of them, whether they were complete or damaged, whether they also appeared in interior spaces or were used for decorative accents, among other aspects.
Wikidatification of the Tile Heritage Inventory of Maranhão
This year, Wikimedia Brazil launched a project to document the current state of this heritage and the changes that have occurred nearly 20 years later, aiming to preserve the memory, history, and culture represented by this material.
Based on the data collected and made available in the inventory, individual items were created on Wikidata for each tile described, as well as for ornamental pieces made with tiles, such as images of saints and decorative elements on building façades. Each Wikidata item includes descriptive information that allows for efficient retrieval, analysis, and reuse by researchers and the general public.
With these structured data and Wikidata entries, the information could be integrated into an app developed by the Wikimedia Brasil team, which catalogs all heritage-listed sites in the country, organized by state and city, and participating in the Wiki Loves Monuments photography competition. In the case of the Maranhão tiles, each one was added to the app’s interactive map using the geographic coordinates recorded in Wikidata—allowing users to locate, visit, and explore these sites in person.
At present, the Wikimedia Brasil team is working to photograph the tiles so that images can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and later added to Wikidata. This effort not only expands the documentation of Maranhão’s tile heritage but also provides a visual record of the current condition of these cultural assets, two decades after their original inventory.
Best Photo from Maranhão in Wiki Loves Folklore Brasil
The 2025 Brazilian edition of Wiki Loves Folklore, an annual photography competition that gives visibility to the intangible cultures of participating countries, included a special category for the best photo from the state of Maranhão.
The winning photograph was Cazumbá do Boi Unidos de Santa Fé, taken by Negrosoousa. The cazumbá is a mystical and protective figure that appears in certain performances of Bumba Meu Boi in Maranhão. A well-known symbol across the state, the photo successfully captures the irreverence, vibrant colors, and joyful spirit embodied by the character.
Documenting Popular Cultural Expressions
São Luís is a city that lives and breathes culture. Throughout the year, it’s possible to witness performances of tambor de Crioula, reggae, traditional dances, Bumba Meu Boi, and many other cultural expressions.
One of the city’s largest festivities is Saint John. During the months of June and July, a wide variety of celebrations take place across São Luís, featuring countless performances. However, before the festivities begin, a cultural event marks the transition from Carnival to the preparations for the festival: the Boi de Cinzas, a more modest performance derived from the traditional Bumba Meu Boi.
Wikimedia Brasil, alongside members of the local Maranhão community, attended one of these performances in a traditional neighborhood of São Luís. The team documented the participation of local folk performers, the diversity of musical instruments, the wide age range of attendees, and performances by an Angola-style capoeira group and a tambor de Crioula ensemble, a dance of African origin commonly practiced in Maranhão in honor of Saint Benedict.
The event was followed by a photo upload workshop, where participants learned how to use Wikimedia Commons and were able to contribute to the Wiki Loves Folklore competition.
Bibliographic collection upload from Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/Fiocruz completed… for now!
In our previous newsletter, we presented the different lines of work we are developing in 2025 with Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/Fiocruz, a GLAM partner of Wikimedia Brasil. Among them, we highlighted the beginning of the upload process related to the bibliographic collection of its patron, Oswaldo Cruz. The books selected for upload to Wikimedia Commons form a robust collection on the history of health. Democratizing access to this material is an initiative aligned with the institution’s values, which, since its founding in 1986, has worked to preserve memory and promote the history of science and public health in Brazil.
In June, we completed the upload of the first batch of the shared collection, comprising 122 books and nearly 50,000 files. They are now available in a dedicated category for the institution’s bibliographic collection on Wikimedia Commons, see here. Soon, we will begin preparations to wikify another 278 books already selected for future upload.
See the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz-Fiocruz's GLAM page and the uploaded media.
Greco-Roman Mythology Editathon and Collection Upload by Casa Museu Eva Klabin
Since 2023, Wikimedia Brasil has partnered with Casa Museu Eva Klabin (Eva Klabin House Museum), a cultural institution located in the Lagoa neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The museum was established in 1990 and officially opened to the public in 1995. It is the former home of Eva Klabin, a collector who bequeathed to the city of Rio de Janeiro a collection of almost 50 centuries of works of art, furniture and decorative ornaments, from Ancient Egypt to Impressionism.
In June, continuing our joint activities, we held the Editatona Ecos do Olimpo (Edit-a-thon Echoes of Olympus). The event aimed to improve the quality and quantity of information about Greco-Roman mythology on the Portuguese-language internet, focusing on Wikipedia. It was conceived as a way to spark interest among the editing community in the set of 43 works of art from the institution’s collection uploaded to Wikimedia Commons this month, and was held in the context of the exhibition Echoes of Olympus: Gods and Myths in the Eva Klabin Collection. You can find the dashboard for this activity here, and below, part of the uploaded collection.
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See the Casa Museu Eva Klabin's GLAM page and the uploaded media.
- Australia report
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- Brazil report
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- Nigeria report
- North Macedonia report
- Poland report
- Portugal report
- Serbia report
- Switzerland report
- UK report
- USA report
- Biodiversity Heritage Library report
- Memory of the World report
- Wiki Loves Ramadan 2025 report
- Calendar
Inspirational, interesting approach to document local heritage. Saludo form the Wikipedia on Aruba team!