Celebrating 70 years: Reimagining Human Relations in our Time
Please note that the call for contributions will now be open until Friday 26th May, 2017.
Thank you if you have already submitted, we will begin planning the programme from here and hope the extension helps those who requested further time.
The call invites contributions to our festival in October 2017. Taking place over four days, Reimagining Human Relations in our Time, will be a multi-sited event taking place in the public domain. Its aims are:
- To engage and expand research interest in the Tavistock Institute’s archive material that is being catalogued at the Wellcome Library.
- To invite creative participation in our programme of work; our philosophical approach; applied methodologies and their potential in tackling current societal challenges.
- To offer activities consistent with the Tavistock Institute’s history and practice that will support an improved understanding of wellbeing- in its individual, organisational and societal dimensions.
We are inviting your responses under the following themes:
NOW: Letters from the new social ecology
This theme invites contributions that explore the world we live in. It is about the research that informs emerging and evolving practice. Contributions under this theme will be the ‘Now’ of Reimagining Human Relations in our Time. Concepts to explore include ‘boundaries’ (their nature as borders and/or bridges?); ‘culture’; ‘environment’; ‘knowledge’; ‘ecology’ and the relationship amongst them.
HERE: Evolving practice in our informed society
This theme is about how we practise in the ‘Now’. We invite contribution from practitioners across the spectrum of the Tavistock Institute’s programme of work, including theorists, deliverers and those on the receiving end: the clients’ voices. Under this theme we are interested in what the implications of being ‘Here’ are for contemporary practice; in new approaches to working in an uncertain world; in our changing relations with data; in evaluating in a complex world; in new cases of socio technical practice.
THERE: In the Shadow and Light of the Archive
This theme takes a historical lens to reflect on the meaning of the Tavistock Institute’s work including the ways in which our archive contributes to organisational development practice; moving from the seminal work as shadows towards standing on the shoulders of giants. We are interested in a wider range of contributors and (inter-) disciplinary experimentation. Contributions to this theme might be about the Tavistock’s work then and now; methodological threads running through the archive and their developments; explorations of the origins of the Tavistock Institute and the Tavistock tradition; inter and intra generational conversations.
THEN: Transacting with the Future
This theme is about ongoing practice; what we give forward and who we will be working with. This means contributions that consider the future or ‘what then?’; it could mean working with and innovating methodologies such as search conferences; considering the role of young people at work and in co-creating our future. Sub themes in ‘Then’ are interactions with neuroscience in understanding groups and society; stepping out of the past; envisaging the future; new organisational forms and work design.
All themes can be explored in the context of the archival material and/or the Tavistock Institute’s spirit of applied theories; if we can’t answer the questions ‘what then?’ (or ‘so what?’) we are not interested!
We are interested in receiving proposals in relation to the themes above and the overall theme of the festival. Your proposals can be for workshops; participatory sessions; talks; performances; poetry readings; art works and other interventions. They can include a virtual or a physical dimension.
Deadlines for submissions: Friday 26th May 2017.
Please submit your proposals using this form to archive2017@tavinstitute.org
We aim to inform you of the outcome of your proposal by the middle of June.
The festival will take place from Tuesday 17th October to Friday 20th October 2017.
Find out more about the festival here.
We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank our partners in this important work: Canterbury Christ Church University Business School and the Wellcome Library. We are also grateful for the generous sponsorship of SAGE and a contribution to the festival from the legacy of Group Relations in the Netherlands.
