All the online initiatives to discover Flanders, from virtual tours to podcasts

Due to the Covid-19 health emergency, museums and exhibitions in Flanders had to close to the public, but they decided to stay in touch with their visitors through the special Stay at Home Museum project: a virtual platform that offers art enthusiasts from around the world the chance to admire the works of Van Eyck and the Flemish masters.

Videos are available on the Flemish Masters 2018-2020 Facebook page that allow virtual tours of important museums in Flanders in the footsteps of Jan van Eyck, Bruegel, Rubens, and Ensor.

“In light of the current situation,” said VisitFlanders CEO Peter De Wilde, "we cannot give the public physical access to our Flemish cultural heritage, but that does not mean we can no longer share our passion for that heritage with the rest of the world. On the contrary, the Stay at Home Museum concept will continue to unite the international community around a common passion for our Flemish Masters."

The major exhibition Van Eyck. An Optical Revolution therefore became virtual thanks to Till-Holger Borchert, co-curator of the exhibition in Ghent. The virtual tours continued with Michel Draguet, director of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (KMSKB), on the trail of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, an artist whose many masterpieces are housed in the Brussels museum. Ben Van Beneden, director of the Rubenshuis in Antwerp, leads visitors into the rooms of the mansion where Peter Paul Rubens lived and worked, which has become a house-museum. Finally, Mieke Mels, curator of Mu.ZEE, introduces the city of Ostend to James Ensor, an artist obsessed with crowds and the sea.

In addition to virtual tours, VisitFlanders presents a series of podcasts to discover Flanders with exceptional guides-Jan van Eyck and the protagonists of his portraits. Six episodes for a must-listen journey through Ghent, Bruges and the places of the Flemish Renaissance. Starting from the major exhibition dedicated to the famous painter, an evocative journey through art, nature and gastronomy will be proposed.

Each episode will last about twenty minutes and will be built on two registers for an original narrative: on the one hand, the dialogue between the presenter Elena Scalet and the voices attributed to Van Eyck, his wife, his brother, Constance Arnolfini (the protagonist of a famous portrait) and the man with the Russian turban; on the other hand, a contemporary register including interventions by historians, art critics. Among the guests involved are Till Holger Borchert, director of the Groeninge Museum in Bruges and one of the co-curators of the Van Eyck exhibition in Ghent, and Stefano Zuffi, a leading scholar of medieval and Renaissance art.

The episodes, written and produced by Piano P, the leading journalism podcast platform, are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, and Google Podcasts. You can access the podcasts on Spreaker at this link. The initiative is part of the celebrations dedicated to Van Eyck that continue in 2021.

Pictured: Jan van Eyck, Annunciation, detail (1434-1436; oil on panel transported on canvas, 92.7 x 36.7 cm; Washington, National Gallery)

All the online initiatives to discover Flanders, from virtual tours to podcasts

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