Working with the Archive

The Archive is a record of the Tavistock Institute’s groundbreaking contribution to the varying ways in which it has tackled societal problems, drawing attention to how we organise ourselves and for what purposes. A typical archive process would methodically organise and categories every item. In this work our goal was to highlight the important social and historical impact of the Institute’s work in a different way. To do this we curated a programme centred around dynamically working with people and their social history. So far this has included social dreaming work, participatory performances with E15 Acting School; the 70th anniversary festival; an interdisciplinary research symposium and is documented in a blog.

Juliet’s personal experiences of the loss of two generations of men in her mother’s family and its consequences underlay her approach and leadership of this project. This supported understanding the similar circumstances in the Institute’s history and formation, its early work in rebuilding society after the trauma of World War Two.

The programme of work was in partnership with Wellcome Library and Canterbury Christ Church University.

Archival fragments © The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.