Introduction

By Gordon Harper

This issue of Wind and Waves is a bit like the infinity symbol. It swings us back into ICA’s origins and foundational work in a quest for what historians call our “usable past.” This is not a nostalgic trip down memory lane, but a search for those things that made us who we are and brought us to the place in which we find ourselves today. Better still, it uncovers resources we may not have fully known we had, that now become available to us as we shape our future path.

The issue was sparked by the Global Archives Project effort currently underway, and many of its articles are from people involved in this project. There are personal stories here of the discovery of unexpected treasures and of finding linkages between things we’re deeply engaged in now and the research and experimentation that brought them into being. There are individual descriptions of points along this journey we continue to share and accounts of events and programs that changed the thinking and direction of our whole community.

It’s timely that this issue has such a focus. This is the year ICA worldwide is exploring new ways in which its remarkable history can be a creative resource for our common future. Major changes in technology are making that history and those resources accessible (and “usable”) to all of us anywhere on planet Earth, something simply not possible before. You will find more in this issue about the archive project and how you can participate in it and the online Research Assembly this September.

As you read through this issue, expect surprises. Notice your mind as it connects the dots between past, present and future – hopefully bringing new understanding to who and what ICA is and firing your imagination as to what we might all help it yet to become.

Enjoy your 'Back to the Future' issue