Going online with the Living Archives

By Marge Philbrook

The Living Archives Project is led by those who had worked with the Order Ecumenical, the Ecumenical Institute and the Institute of Cultural Affairs that began in the early 1960s.

The archival activity of preserving and cataloguing the documented history of this community, reflected in rows of file cabinets, has thankfully been going on for many years and involving many colleagues. What is different today is that we are trying to say in a fresh way what the major arenas of our work were about. Those of us who were there, who actually lived it, have this one remarkable last chance to say, in our own words – and with the advantage of a 40 or 50-year perspective - what it was that we set out to do and did, what our intent was, and how and why we went about it in the way we did. We are finding ways to make the treasure of our past comprehensible and accessible to a new generation of “Those Who Care”.

This is exciting stuff. Part of what’s exciting is making sure that we - and that includes the ICA today and in the future – do not lose that which made us a distinctive and historical presence. For ICA to have a meaningful vision, it needs a way for its current young staff to grasp something of its incredible past, not to replicate it, but to draw on its experience and learning. Beyond that, what’s exciting is seeing potential relationships and partnerships that can emerge from making the Archives available to the world.

The university-focused Service Learning project and the neighbourhood Accelerate77 project are both examples of these “Living Archives”. No longer are the “Archives” equivalent to musty boxes in the basement.

The Fall Sojourn and the long-term Archives Team, either based in Chicago or remote, are building a bridge linking EI/ICA/OE research and projects to the current projects of the ICA-USA and ICA International, and also trying to make them accessible through the world wide web of global communications.

The Fall Sojourn was constantly electrified by the white-hot raw energy behind the thousands upon thousands of programs that the EI/ICA/OE had created based on our fundamental principles. It was marked by singing, sharing of stories and reports of new found treasures as we “re-discovered” the wisdom and clarity that held us together and sustained us and others on the long march of rebuilding the Earth.

We looked at our core strategies: Contextual Re-Education, Structural Reformation, and Spirit Re-Motivation and took baby steps in learning to be Word Press website designer/builders. Our two weeks went by in a flash and we admit that the state of our published collections is really only “Starter Collections”. Nevertheless, they hold immense promise for collaboration with all those involved in social development today.

The Global Archives Project team sees some new near-term developments that will help us communicate more widely online “the future of our past work” in fresh ways. What are these fresh ways? We will be present online and face-to-face in two locations - Chicago and Minneapolis - for a YouTube channel broadcast. We are looking for short stories of our work for new collections such as Imaginal Education, Facilitation Methods and Human Development Projects.

We were inspired by the outreach example of ICA-Ukraine which broadcasts two live programs a week to about 8,000 Ukrainian subscribers in both Russian and English. We intend to produce some live on-air prototype programs on your computer screen - like the Imaginal Education Collection broadcast in September by Elise Packard and Kaze Gadway.

For the Spring Sojourn 2014, we intend to create several intact partner teams to design and startup and bring online new Collections. Please subscribe to collections and stay tuned for some program prototypes.

The Spring Sojourn will run from April 28 to May 9. Please consider taking part in it. You can also work at any time with the long-term Archives Team either based in Chicago or remotely from home. Please contact margephilbrook@gmail.com for more information.

Marge Philbrook is a member of ICA-USA