With art/culture provenance information, dealing with the inevitable uncertainties and subjectivity creates challenges for modeling provenance as linked data. Over the course of a number of projects, Design for Context has worked with art provenance. In this presentation, we outline some questions and considerations for others.

1. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data
…why do we do this work?
Workshop on Uncertainty and Subjectivity
in Provenance Data
Provenance Lab, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, 30 June 2022
Duane Degler
Design for Context
duane@designforcontext.com
Charlie Butcosk
Design for Context
charlie@designforcontext.com

2. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
Perspectives
Design for Context focuses on user experience
• Data Delivery: People who use linked data and provenance (mostly via websites)
• Data Management: People who create and are caretakers of data
Provenance-related challenges
• User engagement and exploration for historical contexts
• Making evidence linked and accessible
• Clarifying ownership and custody for users
• More than one collection object… dynamic sets
• More than uncertainty… the critical role of gaps
• Sharing data across institutions

3. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
Perspectives
Historical framing and contexts
• JDCRP: Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project pilot
Evidence relationships: integrating archives, making it easy to explore
• Duchamp Research Portal
• Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Integrated Collection
Collaboration: data over time, from multiple institutions
• Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Integrated Collection
• Exhibitions
• Publications

4. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
Historical framing and contexts https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/

5. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
Historical framing and contexts
Imagine a dataset with no objects under the institution’s control
• Integration
• Interwoven, exploratory relationships
Data provides user-guided “historical narratives”
• Entities provide historical frames across linked data
• User-controlled context dimensions
Linked evidence?
• Entities and archival materials apply across multiple collections, works, events
…relationship creation was some of the greatest effort required by the research team

6. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
Dynamic Sets
Führerbau theft
Shared entities
among sets of
objects –>
shared custody
Theft
Recovery
Restitution
Recovery
Located

7. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
The importance of modeling gaps as entities
Provenance
GAP
Provenance
statement
Provenance
statement
If they aren’t entities, they’re probably dis-associated narratives
Place
GAP
Events on
relevant dates
People
Hypotheses /
conjectures
Related
objects (sets) Likely relevant
places
A C
?
associated with
”unknowns” ?

8. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
Evidence relationships: The importance of integrating archives
https://duchamparchives.org/
https://collections.okeeffemuseum.org/

9. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
Collaboration: data over time, from multiple institutions
Coming late summer 2022, to the O’Keeffe Collection website…
New exhibition records
New publications features / integrations

10. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
Collaboration: questions this raises for collection data
• How to reflect data provenance
and variations?
• When to refresh data, if at all?
• Other data that is useful in this
specific use case?
Object 345,
Exhibition 1989
Object 345,
Exhibition 1947
Object 345,
Exhibition 2015
Note: Dates and data are made up, for illustration only
Website
Archive records
(exhibiting
institution)
Archive records
(previous holding
institution)
Archive records
(exhibiting
institution)
Archive records
(previous holding
institution)
Current
holding
institution
Archive records
(exhibiting
institution)
Archive records
(previous holding
institution)

11. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
Integration: Publications

12. Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data | Provenance Workshop | Leuphana Universität 30.6.2022
Engaging with Provenance & Linked Data
…why do we do this work?
Workshop on Uncertainty and Subjectivity
in Provenance Data
Provenance Lab, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, 30 June 2022
Duane Degler
Design for Context
duane@designforcontext.com
Charlie Butcosk
Design for Context
charlie@designforcontext.com