Unfortunately, the Center decided to put an end to the venture prematurely to refocus on its core activities as an event organizer and Flemish culture promoter in Japan. We thank them for their amazing effort and motivation that lead to the birth of KAB and wish them a happy future.
We also want to thank the Kansai-based venues for their support and hope to bring KAB back to life soon to continue promote their events to the more than 30,000 people checking the site monthly.

So KAB is now looking for new parents. In concrete terms, the Art Beat network is now looking for a new organization to take over the responsibilities of the Flanders Center and bring back KAB to life and join the Art Beat Network with Tokyo Art Beat and New York Art Beat.

The basic requirements to run KAB include:
* find, train and pay staff (a couple of part-time editors, 1 full-time PR person, 1 part-time manager)
* creat friendly relationships with Kansai-based venues (300 listed and counting)
* translate and list their events on KAB
* actively promote the website around the Kansai region both offline and online
* sell banner advertising on the website

The new parents of KAB will receive support from the Art Beat Network team, including website maintenance, feature updates and work with KAB on potential Japan-wide promotional campaign for events or internal projects such as TAB's successful yearly collection of artist t-shirts or advertising campaign with outside partners.

The successful applicant organization should fit those criteria:
* be based in the Kansai area
* show a proven track record of involvement in culture-related activities in Japan
* be ready to take on the costs associated with the running of the site until it becomes financially sustainable or profitable.
* be a non-profit organization like TAB (optional)

Benefits and pleasures of running KAB for new parents:
* be at the center stage of the art and design scene in the region
* run a great community website with the platform, and help from the people who made Tokyo Art Beat and New York Art Beat
* be part of a growing network of great web sites, bringing the best of creative culture to cities worldwide
* Pay (almost) nothing for the platform and keep (almost) all the revenue

KAB is an essential promotional platform to broadcast Kansai's creativity in Japan and abroad and we hope to find applicants who share our hopes and motivation.
If you are interested in hearing more about it or want to become KAB's new parents, please contact us : contact@kansaiartbeat.com

We feel sorry for this decision, especially because we have met countless people who have a strong passion towards the arts, and because we had discovered that Kansai contains a lively and vibrant art scene.

The Flanders Center would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who have supported us in this venture, together with all the venues who have kindly provided us with information on their events.

From here on, we leave it up to the provider of this website platform, TAB and its parent organization the non-profit organization Gadago to decide on the future's course of this platform.

For any questions regarding this announcement, please contact kab@flanders.jp.

The aim is to introduce and get inspired by the recent trends and lifestyles of Europe. The focus is especially on well designed and excellent performing interior goods and household articles, all against the backdrop of a quickly changing society and social fabric.

Similar as in Europe, Japan too is a maturing society that is gearing towards a more individually tailored lifestyle. More than ever, people have a strong desire in daily life to be surrounded by goods that are well designed, that give a sense of inspiration and that utterly reflect sophistication and an individual choice.

Osaka here again shows its ambition to put itself on the map as a creative and innovative economy offering plenty of inspiration to design the living space and the interiors for the future while also catering on its know-how of furniture making.

As a foretaste of this new Fair and as a kick-off event, the organizers of the fair, the Osaka International Trade Fair Commission, will hold a forum on the theme of "Lifestyle changes and the future of household-related industries" featuring some eminent keynote speakers from both Europe and Japan on May 26th.

For details please refer to Living and Design Forum

Our KAB team will keep running the site strong and would like to thank you all for your support.

However, after encountering female figures in male-oriented industries, Ai Kawamata began to pursue this dream through a photographic journey...

For more information, please check out our advertisement on TAB.

If yes, you might have encountered the article on Kansai Art Beat, which is also available online here.

If you are around Osaka, already planning to see art and have fun, please drop by and let us know how we are doing!

Details are as follows...

Happy New Year! Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday season.

2007 was a big year for KAB. We launched, and have kept a steady pace in providing information for the Kansai art scene. We hope that this year we can expand even more.

Thank you everybody for all your support and let's make this year an exciting year too!

Kansai Art Beat Staff

This will be a great opportunity for KAB users to check out the wide variety of cultural offerings available in the Kansai area.

Click here for the list of participating institutions (in Japanese).