An artwork should never end in an attic
Philoteknia records an artwork while its story is still known, and keeps it ready for the day it moves to a new home.
From the archive
Looking for a new home
Why Philoteknia exists
Most art lives in homes, not museums. It hangs in a hallway, leans against a wall in a spare room, sits on a shelf. It came from a grandmother, from a friend who painted, from a gallery visited once on holiday. And sooner or later, it has to go somewhere: a move to a smaller place, an estate to settle, children who live far away or simply have no wall for it.
Too often, that is where its life ends. In a box under the roof, in a house clearance, as an anonymous lot, with nobody left who knows what it is or why it mattered.
Philoteknia exists so that it can go on instead: recorded while its story is still known, and ready for the day it moves to a new home. That is how art lives on.
It hung in my grandmother's hallway in Ostend. Nobody in the family knows where she bought it.
How an artwork lives on
A permanent record and a QR code keep an artwork's identity, photographs and story together, for as long as it stays with you and wherever it goes next.
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You tell its story
Photograph the artwork and write down what you know about it, in your own words: who made it, where it came from, why it was kept. Nothing is verified; everything is kept as you supplied it.
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It keeps its identity
The artwork receives a permanent number and a QR code that leads to its record. Wherever it goes and whoever holds it next, its record and its story can be found.
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It stays with you
Keep it for as long as you want. Recording an artwork never asks you to part with it, and most artworks on Philoteknia are not for sale and never will be.
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It finds a new home
When the time comes, you can rehome it for free with someone who wants it, and choose who. Selling it will be possible once it has been on record for three years. Its record goes with it, to the next home and the one after. Sales are not open yet.
Start with one artwork
A photograph and a few sentences: that is a record, and it outlasts everyone who remembers the artwork. Putting an artwork on record is free, and so is following, always.