ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

In 2008, Frank “Fritz” Schulenburg came from Germany to California to work for Wikimedia, the organization that operates Wikipedia. Deeply impressed by the beauty of his new home, he started capturing Northern California for the online encyclopedia as a volunteer photographer. His images taken over the past decade focus on California’s unique landscape, architecture, and wildlife. Topics include: lighthouses on the Pacific Coast, native species such as the Sonoma chipmunk and Tule elk, iconic structures such as the Golden Gate Bridge, and volcanoes of the southern Cascade Range.

The Museum of Northern California Art will display Schulenburg’s most popular works in the first ever solo museum exhibition of a Wikipedia photographer. Talks by the artist as well as a series of workshops will accompany the exhibition.

Each work displayed in the exhibition will be accompanied by a QR code that leads visitors to the Wikipedia page on which the photo is found. Visitors will be prompted to use their phone and scan the QR code. This will open the specific encyclopedia page, where the photo serves at illustrating a Northern California related topic. In this way, exhibition visitors will be able to make the connection between the – sometimes familiar – subject of the photo, the print they have in front of them at the museum exhibit, and the popular website where millions of people around the globe find information about Northern California.

ABOUT SCHULENBURG’S PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK

As a child and teenager in the 1970s and 80s, Schulenburg was exposed to weekly illustrated magazines like Stern, the German equivalent of Life. These photo-heavy magazines, and their approach to visual storytelling, sparked his life-long interest in documentary photography.

In his work for Wikipedia, Schulenburg strives for authenticity and an accurate representation of the physical world. Schulenburg’s works are carefully composed and often deliberately prosaic. Given the explanatory purpose of photos taken for an encyclopedia, his images aim to capture the world in a truthful and objective, yet aesthetically pleasing manner.

ABOUT TAKING PICTURES FOR WIKIPEDIA

Most people don’t even know that taking photos for Wikipedia is a thing. Yet, Wikipedia’s photographers reach a massive audience of more than a billion people each month. One could think of them as “having the widest reach of current photographers, while being completely unknown”.

Wikipedia’s photographers are enthusiastic volunteers, who spend endless hours taking pictures intended to explain the physical world with visual means. Many of Wikipedia’s photographers are driven by the idea that sharing one’s own knowledge or images with others for free is a great way of making the world a better place.