From 2027, due to a lack of funding, our Arts Database will unfortunately be shut down. What does this mean in practical terms? What will happen to that data? And where can you still find information about exhibitions, stage productions, music releases and more?
The cuts being implemented by the Flemish Government are affecting society and civil society, including the cultural sector. The figure in question is 47 million, to be implemented across areas including cultural heritage, national archives, support centres, and local and overhead support organisations. The cuts at Flanders Arts Institute have been increased to 15 per cent, and in the coming years there will be further cuts to the organisation as a whole.
Due to a lack of funding, our Arts Database is being discontinued. The database provided the most comprehensive and objective overview of artists, arts professionals, exhibitions, music releases and stage productions in Flanders.
What does this mean for you as an artist, organisation or art worker?
Flanders Arts Institute regularly maps out subsectors of the arts field through field sketches and writing assignments, in which we aim to provide a current overview of key players and stakeholders. This information remains available via our website. Here you will find an overview of participatory art practices in Flanders and Brussels, key players in sound art, organisations and artists in the field of performance art, and more.
The remaining data (including the overview of organisations and arts venues) can be found in this spreadsheet. Please note that this data is no longer being updated.
The last update to this data is as follows:
for classical music: April 2026.
for visual arts: September 2026.
for performing arts: September 2026.
Despite various attempts and searches, there is no organisation within the Flemish heritage sector that has the resources, infrastructure or task to do this.
We are currently exploring, together with publiq, the possibility of transferring the data from the Arts Database to the UiTwisselingsplatform. In addition, we are attempting to archive the entire database on The Internet Archive via Archive-It.
Artists, arts professionals and organisations can download their details here until December 2027.
Yes. Although discontinuing the database means a loss in terms of data accumulation, other organisations will continue to collect data. Flanders Arts Institute’s strength lies in analysing that data.
We will continue to present quantitative analyses, but to do so we will have to rely on data collected by partners (e.g. Department of Culture, Youth and Media) or our own one-off surveys.
You can find in-depth analyses and insights via our knowledge wiki. The themes and topics that form the basis of our day-to-day work can be found here.
For this, we would like to refer you to the organisations listed below. Do you have anything to add to this list? Please let us know via our colleague Tom.
UiTdatabank: concerts, theatre, dance and exhibitions.
