This online database is revealing the work of eastern Europe’s forgotten avant-garde artists

A new interactive database to preserve Europe’s artistic history has been unveiled with more than 8,000 avant-garde works from both sides of the Iron Curtain.

The Forgotten Heritage project contains post-1945 pieces of art from Poland, Croatia, Estonia, Belgium and France — an era which saw art evolve from being mainly paintings in galleries to a diverse world of performances, temporary sculptures and video.

Supported by Creative Europe, the database took years to assemble, with several organisations digitising their archives for the first time.

Officially launched in April, the online archive includes thousands of videos, photos and recordings from often-overlooked artists. Visitors can explore the repository either as a timeline or as a web spanning borders and generations.

The project will wrap up with a series of exhibitions: at Galeriji Spot in Zagreb, the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, and Fundacja Arton in Warsaw. An exhibition is also planned to take place in Brussels in June.

To visit the database yourself, click here.