Practical Examples

Drawing up installation plans for the sculptures of Bern Lohaus

How do you ensure that objects, works (of art or other) or sets are correctly installed in the future without always having to personally oversee the process? The aim of this pilot project was to fin...

Safeguarding Opera Ballet Vlaanderen’s films and magnetic tapes affected by vinegar syndrome

After making an inventory of audiovisual and digital archives in the performing arts sector, we came across a box containing film stock with a vinegar-like odour in the archive at Opera Ballet Vlaand...

A knowledge securement project at Netwerk

By tapping into Artistic Director Paul Lagring’s memory, Netwerk checked whether any essential information was missing from its archive. Interviews were conducted, and the conclusions drawn from them...

Detecting performing arts organisations’ films and magnetic tapes affected by vinegar syndrome

In 2015-2016, Het Firmament and PACKED vzw made an inventory of the audiovisual archives in the performing arts sector. A number of these archives contained film content. We suspected that some of th...

Making FLACC project archives and collections accessible with ICA-AtoM

The FLACC arts centre installed a database for the archive that can be used by its own staff, artists and researchers to find information easily. As such, FLACC is trying to save the knowledge that ...

Describing musical instruments: the Logos Foundation collection

The Logos Foundation is home to a collection of over 200 non-traditional musical instruments built by Godfried-Willem Raes. To simplify management of this collection and increase its visibility, the ...

The heritage of Circus Ronaldo inventoried by volunteers

Circus Ronaldo has a 100 or so backcloths (c. 1910-1960), painted by Willem, Jan, Richard and Florent Van den Berghe, the ancestors of the Ronaldo family. Together with some volunteers from Erfgoedce...

Learning lessons from StageTube, a multimedia web documentary

CEMPER - Centre for Music and Performing Arts Heritage in Flanders, Kunstenpunt - Flanders Arts Institute and meemoo - Flemish Institute for Archives made a mini documentary about technical stage her...

Digital file management at MDMA

Procedures for better storage and documentation of the design process were sought with the architectural firm MDMA. Problem Computer hygiene is a major challenge in digital archiving. The possib...

Opening up deSingel’s architecture archives

deSingel, Flanders’ international arts centre, has been organising exhibitions with local and foreign architects, to raise the profile of Flanders’ architectural culture, since the 1980s. The Centre ...

Evaluation of the BRONKS archiving system

At the request of the BRONKS theatre, Het Firmament and PACKED vzw evaluated its archiving system. On the basis of this evaluation, recommendations were drawn up and practical actions proposed to imp...

La Monnaie has been providing a programme of online operas for years

Lots of opera houses opened their digital doors for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic, but Royal Opera House La Monnaie in Brussels has been providing an online programme since 2011. Pr...

Archive Ugo Dehaes classified and repacked.

In the context of a work placement at Het Firmament (now CEMPER) for the Postgraduate course in Archiving: Heritage Management and Modern Document Management at the VUB in Brussels, a study was carr...

Caring for scenery models in De Munt/ La Monnaie

In 2010 the De Munt archive included around 50 scenery models and is still growing today. As a result, the De Munt archive unit developed a clear procedure for creating (with the aim of proper prese...

Creating video art from the Beursschouwburg archive

Beursschouwburg, the Brussels arts organisation, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015. They organised lots of festivities to mark this special occasion – looking back at their history but also pro...

The development of a logical folder structure at Netwerk

This pilot project documents the way in which Netwerk set up a coordinating folder structure corresponding to the classification of the physical archive. This project was implemented with the help...

Theater Antigone’s paper and analogue archive – initial organisation and placement list

In 2015, Theater Antigone relocated to an office space next to its venue in Overleiestraat, Kortrijk. Following an initial selection of items, its archive was also transferred to the new office. Just...

Temporary emergency storage for the audiovisual archive of Svend Thomsen/TVF

Temporary emergency storage for the audiovisual archive of Svend Thomson/TVF, which contains video productions on various aspects of contemporary art. With the assistance of the VIAA and the Provinc...

An itemised inventory carried out by the volunteer support staff of Theater Aan Zee

An itemised inventory is time-consuming and not always the best approach for all parts of your archive and collection. That said, in certain contexts there are good reasons for making an item-by-it...

An online exhibition looking back over 20 years of Theater Aan Zee

Inspired by the 20th edition of its Ostend theatre festival in 2016, Theater Aan Zee (TAZ) decided to look back at its past. Er TAZ Eens is an online exhibition that takes visitors on a journey looki...

Cleaning up an archive with Tristero

This practical example illustrates how a clean-up day was organised for the physical archive at the Brussels theatre company Tristero, in order to make it more accessible and more user-friendly, and ...

Capturing data from 3.5-inch diskettes for House for Electronics Arts (HeK)

In May 2018, HeK (House for Electronic Arts)[1] asked PACKED vzw to capture data from its 3.5-inch diskettes. This data was the digital art works Raoul A. Pictor cherche son style (1993)[2] by Hervé...

Capturing data from Opera Ballet Vlaanderen’s outdated carriers

In the summer of 2017, PACKED vzw attempted to retrieve data from Opera Ballet Vlaanderen’s collection of outdated carriers: CD-Rs, CD-RWs, Zip drives, SyQuests and magneto-optical drives. Read here...

Archive preservation at Annie Gentils Gallery

In this pilot project a summary is given of the process Annie Gentils went through to create an inventory of her archive to make it usable and accessible. She would like to digitise photos and docume...

Student works on KVS archive

Author: Jens Bertels (AMVB) Summary The Royal Flemish Theatre (Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwburg) participated in an archival audit for performance arts organisations, organised by PACKED and He...

Transfer of the physical and digital archive of the Vooruit arts centre

As a result of renovation work and the phasing out of the heritage project, the Vooruit arts centre decided to transfer its digital and physical archive and collection to Amsab-ISG. In this report ...

Describing a reference library with LibraryThing

PACKED tested the online platform LibraryThing to describe its collection – mainly consisting of books, magazines and DVDs. It wanted a good overview to improve the collection’s internal usability. L...

Charting the iMAL archive

Creating an overview of your archive is a simple way to quickly become familiar with its content and determine your priorities. iMAL has an extensive but disorganised archive stored across various t...

Dealing with rights in the TRANSIT collection

The fifteenth edition of the TRANSIT Festival for New Music took place in Leuven in 2014. There are numerous scores, recordings, programmes, etc. that document this festival, but many of the scores h...

Preserving digital art: practical challenges and solutions

Preserving digital works of art involves specific challenges. Careful storage of the essential hardware and software is highly recommended, but sometimes you can still reach a point – despite carefu...

Registration and identification of video and audio tapes for digitisation at Damaged Goods

The dance company Damaged Goods wishes to have its audiovisual archive digitised to preserve it for the future, and for reference purposes. In an initial phase, the material was inventoried according...