Ripe for reuse - creatives get playful

Developers and enthusiasts with imagination, skill and a desire to be playful have this year produced some incredible applications and projects using digital cultural content.

The GIF IT UP 2018 competition - inviting people to create GIFs using openly licensed objects from Europeana Collections, DPLA, Trove and DigitalNZ - included a special prize for GIFs made using World War One material. This year a record 250 entries demonstrated a growing appetite for this kind of cultural challenge. In the last year, GIFs created with Europeana content on GIPHY reached around 87 million impressions. 

Captivated by his own family history during WW1, developer Yoan Fanis of DigixArt worked with Aardman and BandaiNamco on ‘11-11: Memories Retold’ - a unique video game that uses objects and stories from the Europeana 1914-1918 collection and tells a touching story about the relationship between two men on different sides of the war. This excellent collaboration brought digital cultural heritage to the general public in the form of an immersive storytelling experience.

On 25 March, the Europeana STEM Challenge was launched, offering 20,000 euro to the best educational videos using Europeana openly licensed content to teach STEM (science/technology/engineering/math) topics. A total of 24 applications from 17 countries were submitted. The winning video project ‘Igniting an Industrial Revolution through Steam and Physics’ by the American mechanical engineer Teddy Tablante was awarded 8,000 euro and will be available to teachers and students in October 2019. 

Working with 13 other partners for THE ARTS+ Innovation Summit, the Europeana Foundation contributed to the European Manifesto on Supporting Innovation in the Cultural and Creative Sectors at European, national and regional levels.