The Hidden Galleries Digital Archive was created as one of the primary outputs of the European Research Council funded project Creative Agency and Religious Minorities: Hidden Galleries in the Secret Police Archives in Central and Eastern Europe (project no. 677355). The aim of the database is to facilitate access to aspects of material and visual culture of the religious underground located within the files of the secret police in Central and Eastern Europe.

Access to secret police archives is strictly controlled and although the public and researchers can gain access, the collections are not easily searchable by topic, theme or time period, and hence locating materials such as confiscated religious items, photographs, brochures, drawings and diaries is extremely difficult and time-consuming. Relevant visual and textual materials produced by the secret police in course of their operations and surveillance work are also difficult to locate.

Featuring rarely seen and difficult to locate materials, the Digital Archive is designed to encourage comparative, cross-cultural research on creative responses to repression in the twentieth century as well as serving to reconnect religious communities with aspects of their lost cultural and sacred patrimony. The collection features photographs, icons, brochures, drawings, letters hymns and diaries confiscated from banned religious communities as well as secret police representations of the religious underground in the form of photographs, maps, illustrations and network schemes designed to incriminate and visualise the hidden and secretive enemies of the state.

The archive has a regional scope and is designed to greater enable cross-cultural and transnational research on the creative practices and material culture of religious groups that operated illegally or under strict state supervision. As of April 2019, the Archive contains materials from the following institutions:

• Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security (Állambiztonsági Szolgálatok Történeti Levéltára)
• National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (Consiliul Național pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securității)
• National Archives of Romania (Arhivele Naționale ale României)
• National Archives of the Republic of Moldova  (Archiva Națională a Republicii Moldova)
• The Archives of the Information and Security Services of the Republic of Moldova (Arhiva Serviciului de Informații și Securitate al Republicii Moldova)
• Archive of SBU Office in Odeska Oblast (Управлiння Служби безпеки України в Одеськiй областi)
• The Archive of the SBU Office in Odeska Oblast  (Архів Управлiння Служби безпеки України в Одеськiй областi)
• The State Archives Of Odessa Region (Державний Архів Одеської Області)
• State Archive Branch of the Security Services of Ukraine (Галузевий державний архів Служби безпеки України)

All the materials in the Archive were collected and curated by the Hidden Galleries team: James Kapaló, the Principal Investigator, and Kinga Povedák, Ágnes Hesz, Anca Șincan, Tatiana Vagramenko (IRC postdoctoral researcher), Iuliana Cindrea, Igor Cașu and Dumitru Lisnic. The project team was assisted by researchers and archivists working in the institutions listed above. The Digital Archive, which will continue to expand as the project progresses with the anticipated inclusion of materials from additional countries in the region.