Research in development: Field Analysis of Post-War Visual Arts Organisations in Flanders and Brussels

From February 2026 onwards, CKV will be extending the scope of its services. As well as supporting artists and legacies, we will also start providing active support with archive management to visual arts organisations in Flanders and Brussels. This extension will be accompanied with in-depth research, because if you want to help someone, you need to understand them first. That is the reason that we have been working on a field analysis of post-war visual arts organisations in Flanders and Brussels since February 2025. A field analysis of this kind enables us to gain an overview of the different organisations that have existed over the past eighty years, where they were located and what interests they represented, and to analyse where the (archival) needs of these organisations actually lie. Is there a lack of space, time and resources to take care of these archives? Or are they threatened by sudden technological changes? What measures already exist to safeguard the archives? And do they really meet the needs they are designed to serve? These are questions that we aim to answer in the course of this research.

Approach

Specifically, this field analysis consists of two parts. Firstly, we will work with a data set, an exhaustive register of organisations that lists all the arts organisations found by city and province. Although a list of this kind does provide an initial insight into the wealth of initiatives that Flanders and Brussels have seen over recent decades, the list does not tell us much about the precise needs of those initiatives. For this reason, we are also working on a knowledge file that brings these needs together and links them to specific recommendations, whether for researchers, institutions or the private individuals who manage these archives. Would you like a clearer idea of what a knowledge file of this kind might entail? See the previously published Knowledge Guide on Legacies here (currently only available in Dutch).

Initial Findings

What has already become apparent in the first months of our study is the lack of attention to visual arts organisations in research. Organisations have often been vital places for meetings, exchanges and (co)creation with and by artists, curators, writers and other people involved in the arts. We therefore hope that a side-effect of this research and the services it leads to will be that forgotten visual arts organisations will be brought back into view. The fact that these initiatives have often been disregarded has also had a direct impact on the type of research we are conducting in this field analysis. For example, we are not relying primarily on databases, texts or archives; as is often the case with ‘living’ histories, the stories we need are found among stakeholders and experts who have experienced this history in person. That is why the CKV is organising focus discussions with various experts in the field of the arts, in order to track down and safeguard the physical archives of these organisations as well as merely preserving the oral, interpersonal, intangible archive that surrounds these visual arts organisations.

However, the history of these organisations is not only written or experienced by experts, but also by visitors, enthusiasts and followers. For this reason, the CKV is also exploring taking the plunge into a new methodology for this field analysis. During the research period, a Google Form will be available for everyone to fill in with the names of different arts organisations that they know, either based on their own expertise or that of their direct surroundings. The intention of this survey is for the CKV to be able to investigate which arts organisations (irrespective of their lifespan) have lingered in our ‘collective memory’. Would you like to contribute to this distributed memory archive? You will find the questionnaire here. As well as filling in this list, it would be very useful to us if you could help to spread it in your own network.

Are you the owner of or heir to an organisation yourself? Do you have insights into this topic that are crucial to our research? Or do you have questions of your own that we might be able to answer? You are welcome to contact our project worker Paula Rodríguez Sardiñas by e-mail at: Paula.Rodriguez.Sardinas@muhka.be.