Exhibitions

Info

The exhibitions collection endpoint provides paginated access to all exhibitions in the Design Museum Gent archive. For full metadata on a single exhibition, use the exhibition endpoint.

endpoint:

GET https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibitions

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`page`	integer	`1`	Page number
`itemsPerPage`	integer	`10`	Number of exhibitions per page (max 100)
`fullRecord`	boolean	`false`	Return full CIDOC-CRM records instead of lightweight stubs
`modifiedSince`	date	—	Only return records modified on or after this date. Format: `YYYY-MM-DD`
`language`	string	—	Only return exhibitions with a title in the specified language. Supported: `NLD`, `FRA`, `ENG`

Examples:

GET https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibitions?page=1&itemsPerPage=10

GET https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibitions?page=1&itemsPerPage=50&fullRecord=true

Incremental harvesting

Use modifiedSince combined with fullRecord=true to efficiently harvest only records that have changed since your last sync:

GET https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibitions?modifiedSince=2026-05-01&fullRecord=true&itemsPerPage=50

The parameter is preserved in all Hydra pagination links so you can follow hydra:next as normal. An invalid date format returns 400 Bad Request.

Response format

Data is returned as a Hydra Collection with CIDOC-CRM members.

Prefix	Namespace
`crm`	http://www.cidoc-crm.org/cidoc-crm/
`hydra`	http://www.w3.org/ns/hydra/core#
`rdfs`	http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#
`owl`	https://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#

Code	Description
200	Successful request returning a paginated collection
500	Server error

Pagination — `hydra:view`

Field	Description
`hydra:totalItems`	Total number of exhibitions in the archive
`hydra:first`	Link to the first page
`hydra:last`	Link to the last page
`hydra:previous`	Link to the previous page (omitted on first page)
`hydra:next`	Link to the next page (omitted on last page)

Harvesting the full archive

To harvest all exhibitions, start at page 1 and follow hydra:next until it is absent:

const endpoint = 'https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibitions?fullRecord=true&itemsPerPage=50';

async function harvest(url) {
    const res = await fetch(url);
    const data = await res.json();

    // do something with data["hydra:member"]

    if (data["hydra:view"]["hydra:next"]) {
        await harvest(data["hydra:view"]["hydra:next"]);
    } else {
        console.log('harvest complete')
    }
}

harvest(endpoint);

Pagination

See the objects documentation for full pagination documentation including Link header support and harvesting examples. The same pattern applies to all collection endpoints.

Members — `hydra:member`

Lightweight stub (default)

By default each member contains only the minimum needed to identify the exhibition and resolve to its full record:

Field	Description	Example
`@id`	Internal DMG URI — resolvable to full record	`https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibition/TE_2020-001`
`@type`	CIDOC-CRM class	`crm:E7_Activity`
`rdfs:label`	Dutch title	`"Kleureyck. Van Eycks kleuren in design"`

"hydra:member": [
    {
        "@id": "https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibition/TE_2020-001",
        "@type": "crm:E7_Activity",
        "rdfs:label": "Kleureyck. Van Eycks kleuren in design"
    },
    {
        "@id": "https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibition/TE_2024-002",
        "@type": "crm:E7_Activity",
        "rdfs:label": "Pretty Useless, door Alice Moretto"
    }
]

Full record (`?fullRecord=true`)

When fullRecord=true each member contains the complete CIDOC-CRM JSON-LD record including multilingual titles, descriptions, time span, location, organiser, and links to collection objects shown during the exhibition. The structure is identical to the single exhibition endpoint.

Multilingual titles and descriptions

Full records include titles and descriptions in Dutch, French and English where available. Not all exhibitions have content in all three languages.

Performance

fullRecord=true returns larger payloads as each record includes the full JSON-LD with object links. Keep itemsPerPage at 50 or lower when using fullRecord=true.

Example response (lightweight)

{
    "@context": {
        "crm": "http://www.cidoc-crm.org/cidoc-crm/",
        "rdfs": "http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#",
        "hydra": "http://www.w3.org/ns/hydra/core#",
        "owl": "https://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#"
    },
    "@id": "https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibitions",
    "@type": "hydra:Collection",
    "hydra:totalItems": 312,
    "hydra:view": {
        "@id": "https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibitions?page=1&itemsPerPage=10",
        "@type": "hydra:PartialCollectionView",
        "hydra:first": "https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibitions?page=1&itemsPerPage=10",
        "hydra:last": "https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibitions?page=32&itemsPerPage=10",
        "hydra:next": "https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibitions?page=2&itemsPerPage=10"
    },
    "hydra:member": [
        {
            "@id": "https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibition/TE_2020-001",
            "@type": "crm:E7_Activity",
            "rdfs:label": "Kleureyck. Van Eycks kleuren in design"
        },
        {
            "@id": "https://data.designmuseumgent.be/v2/id/exhibition/TE_2024-002",
            "@type": "crm:E7_Activity",
            "rdfs:label": "Pretty Useless, door Alice Moretto"
        }
    ]
}