Field Analysis of the Archiving Needs of Visual Arts Organisations

Since it was set up in 2019, The Flemish Centre for Art Archives (CKV) has helped various actors in the broadly defined field of the visual arts to take care of their archives and/or artistic legacies. In recent years, this service has come to focus predominantly on individual and private stakeholders such as artists, studios, legacy managers and galleries. From 2026 onwards, the service will be extended to include support for visual arts organisations.

To provide a solid foundation for this extension, an in-depth field analysis was conducted between February 2025 and June 2026. The objective of the field analysis was to gain insight into the archiving challenges facing the visual arts organisations that have existed in Flanders and Brussels over the past eighty years. What help do these organisations need in terms of caring for their archives? And how can CKV offer this support on a long-lasting basis?

Methodology

A wide range of literature was consulted during this research project, along with databases (both art-specific and more general ones, such as the holiday timetables of local authorities) and the archives of several newspapers and magazines, specifically Vooruit, De Witte Raaf, Kunst & Cultuur and Art Diary.

However, the lion’s share of this research was based on oral sources and narratives. As such, discussions were held with various experts from the wider field of the visual arts in fifteen one-on-one interviews and four focus groups. These experts were not only asked for their insights into the difficulties that organisations may or may not experience with archive management, but also about the different developments that the field of the arts has witnessed over the years.

These anecdotes teach us about the archiving needs of the field and provide valuable testimonies to the field in its many guises. Some of these testimonies correspond closely; others contradict each other. Together, they create a layered and many-voiced image of the different developments in the field of the visual arts in Belgium and the origin myths that surround it.

Besides these expert meetings, 37 visual arts organisations were surveyed. This was done by means of site visits during which the organisations could discuss their problems relating to archive care and situate them in the context of their activities. On these site visits, we often gave initial advice for improving their archive and information management.

The site visits taught us about what is causing difficulties in the field as well as the good archiving practices that already exist there. For example, in spite of their very different activities, MASEREEL arts centre (Kasterlee) and Kunstwerkplaats De Zandberg (Harelbeke) are each broadening the definition of ‘the archive’ in their own way by adding the works of art produced in their studios to their archives as well. The arts education organisation Kunst in Zicht (Turnhout) is also working in an interesting way, this time with regard to intangible heritage. Kunst in Zicht sees its main aim as turning art into an indisputable part of the everyday lives of children, young people and those who raise them. They do this by means of workshops developed with artists as well as with Kraaiennest (‘crow’s nest’), a section of their website where you can enter the materials you have available and receive a suggestion for a creative assignment using those materials. In this way, Kunst in Zicht is not just increasing its range but also preserving something that is otherwise difficult to capture: the impetus behind their activities. Conversely, the archive is the backbone of day-to-day activities for the Brussels-based organisation La Loge. Since it consists of a small, two-person team supported by volunteers and students, efficiency is very important. For this reason, La Loge has organised its archive in a way that makes it easy for everyone to consult it: a clear structure saves time!

1945-1980: the (re)discovery of the field

A difficulty that this field analysis entails is the long timeline it deals with. Not only do the earlier period (1945 to approximately 1980) and the more recent period require different methodologies, but they also generate very different results. Where it is possible to define concrete needs for the more recent period and hence also formulate advice, that has turned out to be more difficult for the earlier period. This is because the greatest need for that period is retrieval, recognition and then acknowledgement. The names of the visual arts organisations that existed then are in fact at risk of being forgotten.

To find these arts organisations, extensive archival research has been done in various newspapers and magazines. These offer an overview of some of the many initiatives in existence at the time. These names were then collected in a data set, i.e. a long list that attempts to gather as much information about the organisations as possible, including the location, name, typology, year of starting and stopping, address(es), subsidies, founding members, heirs, mentions in interviews, the location, condition and size of the archive, the needs of the archive keepers, their mission and vision and, lastly, the reason why the organisation closed down. This is certainly not a complete list of all the organisations that have existed over the last 80 years, but it may form the basis of future research.

A field in need

This research resulted in a list of about eighty needs that can be categorised into fourteen topics, including the need to give meaning, a lack of knowledge about how to care for an archive, the need for more securely embedded information, the need for better networking between organisations and, last but not least, better tools for when an organisation closes down. We will explain two of these needs below:

(1) The need to give meaning – why does archiving matter? Since 2016, persons and organisations who receive multiple-year subsidies under the Kunstendecreet (Flemish Arts Decree) are obliged to take care of their archive and justify the steps that they take to do so in their subsidy applications. Why this is required, however, remains unclear to many,  as are the criteria by which this section is evaluated. Additionally, the field is dominated by a constant state of scarcity and insecurity. As such, the most commonly cited need was a need for time, resources and manpower. This means that, understandably, archiving often ends up at the bottom of the to-do list. In other words, organisations do not understand why they need to keep archives; what they do understand is that they have no time, money or people to do so.

Until explanations are provided as to why archives are necessary, there is no support base for the CKV to continue its work. It is therefore up to CKV to give new, positive meanings to the archive and, by extension, the practice of archiving. These meanings should preferably also reflect the specific ambitions, desires and lived realities of arts organisations. In this way, archiving can grow into a well-supported, embedded practice whose importance and benefits are beyond dispute.

(2) Knowledge gap – how do you keep archives? There is a lack of knowledge about care for archives in the visual arts field. The employees who take on archive care do so with the best intentions, but without the necessary practical knowhow or support to create a long-lasting, consultable archive. With analogue archives, this means that apparently innocent materials are often used that cause damage in the long term, such as staples, paperclips, plastic sleeves, ring binders, sticky tape, labels, etc. Archives in which media supports are stored are equally susceptible to this: CDs are kept in places subject to highly variable climates, VHS tapes are placed too close to magnetic surfaces, and hard drives are not replaced in good time, resulting in the loss of the information stored. In turn, digital archives are not sufficiently well managed: if there is a folder structure, it is often too complex and irregular, since each employee often does their own thing.

This lack of knowledge is paired with a prevailing sense of ‘infowhelm’. The resources available to start caring for an archive are often so exhaustive that employees get the impression that they cannot do it ‘well enough’ even before they start. There is a need for a lower threshold, accessible guidelines and, more than anything perhaps, more self-confidence among cultural workers regarding archival care.

Conclusion

This field analysis has brought together the wide-ranging challenges concerning archive care that confront visual arts organisations. Simultaneously, the great willingness that exists in the field to tackle these challenges must be acknowledged. As such, this process has revealed much about archive care and visual arts organisations, and especially about the rich, generous field of the arts in which we are permitted to work. The CKV would therefore like to thank all the participants for their openness, cooperation, generosity and insights.