Wikidata:A Wikidatan in Venice

A Wikidatan in Venice is a painting by Noemí Carrau “Nacasona” created during the summer of 2014. The artwork was commissioned and donated to the Wikidata community by an anonymous member as a second anniversary gift. The object is kept at Wikimedia Deutschland’s office in Berlin. See pictures of the painting's creation.

The artwork

The 60x80cm aquarella on wood is an allegory of the use of Wikidata as a way of approaching reality. On the foreground Pinocchio appears wearing a shirt with the Wikidata colors, his figure representing the interaction with the world and the resulting conceptualizations, shown as bubbles. On the bed sheet there is a game of shadows that symbolize the projections of said concepts as abstractions. On a surreal tree there is a third figure that stands for the removal of misleading thinking models, thus allowing to reach deeper and closer to the truth by using Wikidata, depicted as a quill.

Nacasona stated, “this painting grew outdoors, its paint nurtured by the canal near campo San Cassian where I work as street artist. And the fact is that this particular Pinocchio won everybody’s affection. Neighbours and children now miss it, as somehow it already formed part of their daily lives.”

A short story

Pinocchio is sitting on a Venetian well, the sun shines, and the birds eat the time away while he is focused. He watches this and that. Everything is so beautiful. Nature shines, blooms, ever-changing. And he tries to capture that moment, become closer to it… and only bubbles come out of it.

“Maybe I should think more about it”, says to himself while closing his eyes. With his Wikidatan shirt on, the world seems now to be all clearly delimited, at the reach of hand. Alas, it did not last long. The bubbles flat now are, but still bubbles are.

“If away I went, further away I might be able to go”, wonders this untroubled Pinocchio. And the colors of nature are no longer the colors of nature, and the knowledge of nature is no longer the knowledge of nature, and it all merges in a tree that grows and grows without beginning nor end.

Pinocchio is now at the top of this tree, eyes wide-open, simple, raw, and unconstrained. Wikidata, a feather in his hand, a feather that can reach deep into the bubbles and use them to write another page on the book. There is satisfaction, as much as a fantastic bird would have when reaching high - to the sky, to the universe, and beyond.

Meanwhile, the water well shouts “ora!”, an invitation to start now, right now.

A poem

T'ho visto sfogliare i colori della vita,
mentre, vicino a te, i piccioni beccano senza pausa
le briciole di tempo.

Ho letto i tuoi pensieri stesi insieme alla biancheria,
vecchie pagine di un romanzo dimenticato
nell’oceano dei sogni.

Mi sono tuffato nel mondo delle immagini,
in un volo acqueo tra paesaggi evanescenti
e voci lontane di mille sfumature.

Ho sentito l’eco d’un desiderio
arrampicarsi sulla vera da pozzo e sfuggire
come un pesce tra le mani.

Dopo tanti anni di parole e silenzi
chiusi dentro bolle di sapone,
adesso hai capito.

In un attimo di luce,
guardi il cielo con occhi stanchi
e sogni con diventare bambino.

Vieni con me sull’albero della Fantasia
e raccontami di nuovo quella fiaba
prima che il tuo battito si addormenti.