Christos Varvantakis (WMDE)
About me
Hello. I'm a social anthropologist and my work focuses on archives, political activism, the commons and the cultural sector. I love working with socially-minded people and organisations, especially on issues relating to opening, diversifying, decolonizing and democratizing knowledge. And, I love stories; I am not a particularly skilled storyteller but I'm a fair listener.
My work
I am a Partner Manager at Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE). I am responsible for connecting with global institutions and onboarding them to Wikidata and Wikibase. I also act as a point of contact and information exchange for Partners, WMDE’s software department, and Wiki Communities.
Contact me
My work email address:
christos.varvantakis@wikimedia.de
WMDE's Partnerships Team:
swe_partnerships@wikimedia.de
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Forthcoming events
In case you're around, we could meet at:
- Wikimedia Summit 2024 Berlin, Germany 19-21 April
- Copy-Paste-Waste: Linked Open Data and Digital Sustainability Online 24 April 2024
- AI Sauna Helsinki, Finland 6-7 May 2024
Publications
A list of publications relating to archives & databases, digital cultures, publics and open-access to knowledge. For a full list of my publications see here (All items listed are in open access)
- Rethinking Anthropological Film Exhibition and Distribution (2022, Cultural Anthropology. With S. Verstappen, F. P. McDonald, A. Apley, H. S. Gill, M. Mecca, C. Sartori, F. Storaas)
- Ethnographic Film at the Crossroads (2021, Allegra Lab)
- Labour of Love: An Open Access Manifesto for Freedom, Integrity, and Creativity in the Humanities and Interpretive Social Sciences (2020, Commonplace. With Pia, A. E., Batterbury, S., Joniak-Lüthi, A., LaFlamme, M., Wielander, G., Zerilli, F. M., Nolas, M., Schubert, J., Loubere, N., Franceschini, I., Walsh, C., Mora, A.) Also available in Italian and in Spanish
- Database activism for strange times: Unpacking and undoing 'the crisis' (2020, Discover Society. With S-M. Nolas, A. Chalkidou A. Corble, M. Apgar)
- Global Youth in Digital Trajectories (2019, Routledge. With M. Kontopodis and C. Wulf)
- Exploring the Idioms of Childhood Publics (2018, Sociological Research Online)
Public Archives & Databases Projects
List of archival and database projects I have been involved into
- Research Wikibase A knowledge base of scholarly and research publications about Wikibase.
- The Children's Photography Archive A digital archive infrastructure to feature and preserve the work of children photographers internationally, and to push the boundaries of our understanding of children’s visual cultures.
- Greek Crisis Literature Database Interactive database of scholarly and research publications about the Greek financial and social 'Crisis' of the 2010's
- Earliest Political Memories Archive An archive of about 200 persons' earliest political memories, which explores the intersections of memory, history and politics internationally.
Curatorial & Editorial Projects
Projects I've engaged with in curatorial or editorial roles, and which are very dear to me
- Ethnofest - Athens Ethnographic Film Festival I've been acting as head of Programming for this documentary Film Festival over the last 8 years. It takes place in Athens annually in November.
- entanglements: experiments in multimodal ethnography I've been co-editing this independent open-access journal between 2018-22, exploring the intersections of arts and social science research.
- Journal of Anthropological Films I sit on the editorial board of this groundbreaking open access journal which, instead of textual articles, publishes films that stand alone as social anthropological research. I've also co-edited a special issue for this journal in 2019, Critical encounters: The “European refugee crisis”
- Ethnocineca - International Documentary Film Festival Vienna Participated in various film award committees, and I delivered the festival's opening talk in its 15th edition.
- in common Co-curated a multimedia exhibition which explored the relation between childhood and public life; Athens, London and Hyderabad 2017-2018, with S-M. Nolas and V. Aruldoss.
Past Events
List of some past events, with presentation material where available.
- GLAM Wiki Conference 2023 Montevideo, Uruguay 16–18 November 2023
- Digital Libraries: Sustainable Development in Education (National Digital Libraries of India) Kharagpur, India, 20-22 November 2023
- Zugang gestalten! Münster, 4-6 October 2023
- International Workshop: Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikibase Berlin, 10&11 October 2023
- 20th ICOM-CC Conference Valencia, 18-22 September 2023. Wikimedia at the 20th ICOM-CC Triennial Conference meta page available here.
- 'Multimodal Research and Publishing' Conference (Organised by ZOiS and DEZIM). Berlin, 18&19 June 2023
- Wikimania 2023 16-19 August 2023
- RESAW 2023: Exploring the Archived Web During a Highly Transformative Age Marseilles, 5&6 June 2023
- Wikimedia Technology Summit 2023 See opening video for Public Archives and Participation
- CEE Meeting 2022 Presentation: How WMDE can support partnerships with GLAM institutions with Wikidata and Wikibase