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Ending at the beginning or beginning at the end?

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Social Dreaming Final Matrix  DCP 2021/22 – Taking place on 13 December 2022 from 13:30-14:30  GMT

Present: Heather, Maria, Bernie, Elizabeth, Claire and 20 participants

9 Dreams & 11 Associations

Co-hosts: Elizabeth Mc Court and Bernadette Kennedy

Dream 1:

My dream from last night.

I couldn’t make heads or tails of it; We didn’t know if all the students had their visas. I had all the stuff. My staff were doing nothing, I was doing everything . We just couldn’t organize it and that was the dream

Dream 2:

A dream a few days back my foster mother who is around 74 years old she gives me a gift for my birthday.  She draws something, a memory for my birthday, a greeting card. She has drawn it. I see the goddess Durga at the top and one at the bottom.  The top Durga has multiple hands and is dark in color. The one on the bottom is lighter. I’m struck and baffled by Durga coming into my dream.

Dream 3:

I think it was daytime and outdoors and I’m walking on the pavement its not a very bright day. I am between the edge of the pavement  and a stall and people are selling goods - they are selling warm socks and gloves. A man, an Asian man, who is not dissimilar to me, early 50s a bit younger than me , I asked him about the gloves. Then we walked about 50 yards, to a little driveway, something shared with an opening, an Aladdin’s cave. He’s got piles of goods and he sifts through them and finds a pair of gloves, excellent leather and says, ‘you’ll really like them.’ .Similar to a pair I have already. What struck me was how friendly he was.  Then we crossed the road, he was so hospitable and I wasn’t cold at all. I had a light jacket. In the dream we are walking down a shared road and we recognised we were from different class. It was very lovely yet lonely .

Association 1:

When I walked into my organisation after a time out - I hadn’t been back in a while. I stepped in and as I walked up the stairs I stopped and looked at my phone and a stranger came down the stairs.  She said, ‘you have lovely colors.’ I looked at the mostly pink shades I was wearing and said “thank you”  and also that she was “very kind”, She said,” no, you have lovely colors” and it was a beautiful moment between two strangers.

Dream 4:

With my dream from 2 nights ago, I’m in a desert, I’m escaping and helping a woman to escape. I’m sitting first then on a toboggan going down and shes with me sliding down the sand dune slope. It’s exciting and not scary and then we are in a truck in a queue of traffic at a check point.The traffic is flowing but I find myself out of the truck and walking to a bizarre and there is a man selling dried fruit , a bounty of it, all laid out on the floor for selling on a white sheet. I gingerly run across the sheet trying not to stand on the fruit. I had to run to find a solicitor , who is already talking to the woman I helped escape.He yet she is saying “according to the contract, you did kill that person”

Dream 5:

I think I was in that time between asleep and awake - I dreamt I was in the pool and I was on the far side of the pool when a tall man carrying a long back case came. He was dressed, he had a long black case and I was very afraid it was a large gun in there.

Dream 6:

One week ago I dreamt I was at the gynecologist for my annual checkup- every year you must go to test. I was in the room with others waiting  and there was a new protocol , we had to prepare by injecting an antiseptic, from bottles of water. They gave us a short, white and thick bottle. I was stressed that the bottle wouldn’t fit into my vagina. I was stressed about  how I would be able to follow the process.

Dream 7:
Last night, I think it was pre-sleep. I find myself near a body of water facing it and there is a building  on the other side of the water. But I could and couldn’t recognize it. It did seem possible to get into the building.I could see myself swinging on a rope - I was coming down. But at the same time I was standing on the other side of the water looking at the building from the shore .I wanted to get somewhere. It felt unsafe and I felt rising panic.

Association 2

I have an association with the gloves and the building and I see a Bazaar with lots of goods: gloves and food and people. I’m looking at it from the street wondering if I’m going in.

Dream 8:

I dreamn’t last night that  I’d gone back to work in Social Services and was ½ my age at the beginning of my career. I was trying to be organised and I had to make up my own case studies . I couldn’t decide where to start and what decisions to make on the case files. I couldn’t decide where this family started and where it ended. I was trying to get the genealogy right .I knew this family but I knew them all as children yet I knew the grandparents and the families disposition. I am trying to get it right but there is nowhere to put it

Dream 9:

Last week I was in a deep sleep in the dream I felt breathless. I was seeing the best events of life - from my childbirth onwards - I see myself as a child trying to catch dreams  - I see things that happened to me. I woke up and saw myself sweating. I had a glass of water .

Association 3:

Of a fox, scavenging for food in a dust bin. It’s  just been disturbed and looks around.

Association 4:

I keep coming back to the students,how to get them into course and  the bottles into the vagina. The goddess and how I am seen and how I am connected yet celebrated . These thoughts are swirling around inside of me.

Association 5:

The association is of the students of the fresh new energy and the vagina is power of the woman and the goddess is appearing to say ‘own your strengths’

Association 6:

I had an association regarding going from one thing to another , of the difference and the people in a vulnerable place, it can be dangerous going from one to another or thinking  how one thing is to another. Reminds me of a child, being out in my garden and someone brings themselves into the garden by opening the gate. Then my dad appeared.  Crossing one space to another and being vulnerable.

Association 7:

With that and the fox. I was on a train in a part of London that I am not familiar with and I got on the train and it was dark and I was the only person in the carriage. Then suddenly a young man in a hoodie stepped in from the connecting carriage door. I had a moment that I felt scared when he stepped in. In the moment he walked down and further into  the car. We locked eyes for a moment and I wondered where I had seen those eyes before. The same eyes as the fox I’d seen before. The big fox was outside my house - I saw him in the dark - he was more scared of me than I was. In my moment of my  own fear on the train  I didn’t recognize this in the man.  I sensed the man  came in and saw an older female and he felt safe . We got off at the same station, I said, ‘hi yet good day’ and he looked embarrassed - it’s a powerful image now.

Association 9:

From the story, some images from the stories, the first, the images of fruit, green, pink, yellow, striking red. Such color and image in my mind. Also a picture of danger, associated with the dream. Also, more gloomy colors, dark . This story  spoke out the dreams from somewhere yet Summer.

Association 10:

Watched something about emancipation of men with my son. A cartoon god character smashing a hammer yet woman  on the table with anger.

Association 11:

Suddenly I’m filled with fear I was associating all the colors, gloves and bright food and objects on the market and the color and beauty. Then the story and the struggle of getting into the building- I see in black and white. Holding this image between a goddess and a violent god. I’m struck. I’m feeling fear and vulnerability.

Matrix closed:

REVIEW:

I am struck by the effort of anxiously trying to organize and the chaos near the edges of quite a few things people said.

I was struck by how many things had polarity – it wasn’t either or in the polarity there was movement between - that both can exist with movement between

What struck me was the vulnerability and compassion. The colors and power that blended together.

The power of connection with each other.

I also noticed representations connecting with a gaze -catching gaze or not. In one I heard one person – the person with the fox’s gaze. I didn’t picture faces facing toward each other.

I was struck by quite a few people offering gifts, the colors, the gloves, fruit, seeing a man escaping to a building. And a sense of regret, not being seen to help because it’s a person.A sense we may not be seeing the offer , its subtle not powerful. We are not recognising that we are doing things that people appreciate . Not recognizing appreciation.

I experienced the matrix as expansive, something about different thoughts and pictures -going in different directions - it felt a good thing and also scary., And things not being what they seem. Quite scared – the world, the polarities and the ability to misunderstand as we are communicating across purposes and reading the various connections like parts of a canvas. It felt connecting being part of the matrix

A Lot of dreams came in fast. Colour then came collectively and  it began and ended with the goddess stories .

I was struck with the vulnerability that came in and the connections that were surfacing. Goddess organizing our lives in deep sleep. We have to acknowledge and see what that means.

I felt a force taking me from my loneliness to the market yet I felt loneliness being taken to the market. Memories coming -full fields and colors. For my only thought was about time  – I feel nostalgic. I felt connected to this.

Imagination coming from the matrix melting the time horizon – images coming from the matrix. I felt like I’m in a thick mist. Some stories give great images and then the mist covers them. Sometimes I can catch the image in the mist. In the mist the horizon disappears  -I’m walking in the mist, the horizon is gone.Create images with colors – I move into the second story – sometimes I create images or thick mist covers everything. I am working in the mist. Time horizon is gone.

I am shocked yet struck by 3 things – all colors the vibrancy and energy from them , the food and nutrition  and the power of the goddess. The triangle gaze is staring at me yet us -the three are at play, going through breathless there is so much coming to me. This is a reminder of the three parts of the triangle yet it is co-existing in the matrix.

I’m noticing masculine and feminine energy and the dreams around it and the mist. Looking for chinks of light being offered yet  you need to look for the gifts of light and gifts to see what’s exposed

Dreams came at different tempos – beginning starting, the warmth of the desert, fruit, and there’s a physicality – a body physicality - a sense of body - breathing and heart rate and then fear, it raised my heartbeat . A sense of up and down tempo. I hadn’t noticed earlier but the color was bringing warmth .

I noticed the male/female energy - male voices associated with empowered movement like tobogganing down a slope at speed and smashing on the table - maybe to balance talking about vulnerability

Something for me – was struggling with exclusions for others and trying to cross water. Women trying to be inclusive and vulnerable in the act of connecting. And the look across the railway carriage - means something different for  different people in it..

I appreciate the comments, I hadn’t noticed the shift of pacing until I noticed it in my body now. I’m caught in my own somatic experience. I’m wondering how to experience

I’m thinking about this as the last SD of this programme, the 2nd programme. The 1st cohort was equal men and women and this one all female. And thinking about how different final outcomes are depending on who joins and who feels able and who feels welcome, It’s interesting.  Thank you.

THE FINAL MATRIX OF DCP IS CLOSED

The notes have been written up by the co-hosts who have decided, in keeping with the rich matrix content, to embrace the duality that surfaced in their individual text versions,-to hold the tension in the  differences using the connecting word “yet” and to share it openly with all who attended acknowledging there is not a right and wrong. As with the social dreaming we propose that there are no attempts  to interpret this, just to notice it and to allow it to belong to the matrix group  via padlet. We recognise that this is a step beyond the usual practice for social dreaming - a  “calling out” and celebration of our differences but also an “opening up” of ourselves and the notes about the social dreaming matrix in order to facilitate a further  discussion forum via padlet.

We leave you now and thank you for participating in the final DCP Social Dreaming.

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Passionate about using the arts as a catalyst for social change, Sam has spent the last 18 years working creatively with communities as a director and facilitator in a variety of national and international setting. She has extensive experience and knowledge of workshop practice, devising and collaborative theatre and specialises in developing project work for those in the most challenging circumstances; young offenders, students who have been permanently excluded from school, “at risk” and marginalised communities, refugees and the terminally ill.

Alongside her work with Nimble Fish, Samantha was awarded an International Placement for Creative Entrepreneurs from the British Council in 2009 to develop an arts programme of activity working with young people affected by leprosy in New Delhi.

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Drawing by Claire Finch "inspired by the morning's social dreaming"

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Franca works as psychoanalytic psychotherapist, group analyst and organisational consultant. She has been director and consultant of many group relations conferences in Italy and abroad. She has worked with Gordon Lawrence since the 1990s, developing Social Dreaming in Italy and delivered the first Social Dreaming tranings.

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Sam Nightingale is an artist and researcher working in environmental media. He uses experimental forms of photography and speculative fieldwork to explore ‘spectral ecologies’ and the geopolitical interface between history, ecology and the image. His work explores how ‘spectral ecologies’ trace human and nonhuman histories and events enmeshed within organic and inorganic life, of salt, soil, and plants, as well as the built environment. The work draws as much on technical media as it does on a biophysical environment’s capacity to act as ‘elemental media’ or ‘natural media’.

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Amy works with Nimble Fish, and is also a performer, maker, and facilitator. Inspired by the messy paradoxes of what it is to be human, the stories I tell, characters I play, and ways I teach are defined by capturing - and disrupting - the masks we present to the world. I work with a fervent, fabulous belief that theatre and play make us better creatures - kinder, deeper, more creative and connected, and much, much sillier.

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Bongsu Park is a London-based South Korean multidisciplinary artist. Her award-winning repertoire explores human cycles through a collective process between artist and audience.

Favouring contemporary dance, music, and editing in her videos and performance works, Park collaborates with choreographers in an attempt to physically manifest the cerebral realm.

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What does space for reimagining ourselves and the world look, sound, and feel like?

I've been reflecting on power, arts and activism. What are the limits and what are the possibilities?

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Was struck by the emerging winter theme especially with snow falling in parts of the country . I went up to Richmond park just over 3 weeks from my last trip and anticipated a big change in the vibrant Autumn colours but noticed the wonderful rich colour now carpets the park when it previously veiled the trees . Curious about the space in between these two - the physical space and the time gap - and also reflecting that on the same day storms are blowing and snow falling in other parts of the country - same transitioning of seasons but oh so different speed of change

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Deepening Creative Practice in 5 Seasons

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The Tavistock Institute is engaged with evaluation and action research, organisational development and change consultancy, executive coaching and professional development, all in service of supporting sustainable change and ongoing learning.

The TIHR is dedicated to the study of human relations for the purpose of bettering working life and conditions for all humans within their organisations, communities and broader societies and to the influence of environment in all its aspects on the formation or development of human character or capacity; to conduct research and provide opportunities for learning through experience for this purpose; to publish the results of such study and research; to train students in or for any branches of the said study.

Deepening Creative Practice (DCP)
DCP a unique trans-disciplinary programme weaving together the arts and social sciences: nurturing experimentation, curiosity, reflection, working with difference and practising taking risks.

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Admin support to various teams and projects, assisting in hosting events and providing support for several of the Institute’s professional development programmes.

In my other life, I am a freelance mezzo-soprano and have worked with companies such as:

Longborough Festival Opera

English Touring Opera

Garsington Opera

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Deborah Williams. Executive Director. Creative Diversity Network

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Deborah has worked across the arts sector as an artist, consultant and manager for over thirty years. She became involved in disability arts when she started performing with Graeae Theatre in the 1990s, worked on children’s theatre productions, as well touring with the company. She later worked in outreach for London Disability Arts Forum, and was particularly involved in a voluntary programme which was developed into the Disability Film Festival.

Disability Equality

Deborah is known in disability arts for playing a significant role in the implementation of disability equality legislation (Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and Equality Act 2010) in the cultural sector, and promoting diversity and equality advocacy; this has included representing London Disability Arts Forum and Arts Council England (ACE) across the EU.

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National Disability Arts Collection & Archive

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Deborah Williams. Executive Director. Creative Diversity Network

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Uncover the heritage story of the disabled people and their allies who broke down barriers, helped change the law and made great art and culture along that journey.

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During the last decade, I have developed a passion for identifying and developing leaders who may emerge from new or unexpected places. In the complex social hierarchy of organisational life that we operate in nowadays, the relationship to authority and progression may provoke a variety of responses both from those in leadership as well as from those in followership positions. I have a special interest in the hidden and overlooked members of organisations and society be this because of race, gender, age or any other descriptor. In my work, I draw on systemic psychoanalytic perspective as well as my growing expertise in working in the interface between the human/social and the technical. In our global society, where we need to develop human agility, technological savviness and a capacity to move between the two, my specialism and interest come together in exciting and relevant ways. I work with face-to-face as well as virtual groups and apply my understanding of the dynamics and behaviour of groups to this work.

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Robert Clark is a choreographer working across a range of contexts. From the stage, to intimate 1-1 performance encounters; at the core of Robert’s work is a commitment to curiosity, the belief that empathy is the foundation upon which meaningful communication happens, and the desire for his productions to act as a catalyst for change, on the internal, personal and societal level.

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In April 2020 I was catapulted back from my 6 month career break into the large NHS acute Trust in London that I work for - I started to write some poetry about my covoid pandemic steps into the Organisation and later I thought about how it felt and adopted some movements to music . Here during “my wintering”I try to blend these different moments together . Curious to explore this more with staff in the Organisation - blending different narratives through mixed media - sharing stories . Would love some help with this from DCP and artists as we move through Winter into Spring

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Drawing from Social Dreaming - Claire Finch

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Drawing from Social Dreaming - Claire Finch

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I had a dream last night that I was sitting near the sea and not paying attention and the waves came up and washed everything away.  The only thing I found was my hat that had been washed up but nearly ruined.  Then I was on a big boat and when I climbed the stairs to the deck to get off, the boat had left the dock.  I found the captain and begged him to let me off, but first we had to go on somewhat of an undulating blow up ramp to exit that made my stomach flip.  When arriving in the town, there were lots  When I looked at my phone, I realized it wasn't mine but an old flip phone the captain had given me and I'd left mine on the ship.

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Collaborative Performance Art from Bernie's Kitchen

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Collaborative Performance Art from Bernie's Kitchen

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Living the Dream - Sound Collage by Group 

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Living the Dream - Sound Collage by Group 

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'Living the dream', a collaborative art piece capturing collective states of being pre-Winter DCP, B. Kennedy, E. McCourt, R.McCarthy and C. Finch

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A tour of our temporary exhibition from our work with Sam Nightengale.   Art, nature, words, pictures……. Other worlds….sounds from the park.

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Social Dreaming as container - The Tavistock Institute

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A part of all seasons . . .

Social Dreaming is a way of working with dreams where the focus is on the dream and not the dreamer, where dreams are shared amongst people who come together solely for this purpose. With Social Dreaming, the meaning of a dream is about the broader world in which one lives.

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to help deepen creative practice with organisations

The first cohort of Deepening Creative Practice with organisations has now completed the four seasons - from Spring to Winter - with the fifth, 'exhibiting' season due to take place this coming Spring. As we worked through the Winter season, one reflection was on the value of regular social dreaming matrices throughout the programme. These matrices have been programmed to take place twice per season, and additional matrices were set up by participants between the autumn and winter seasons.

In addition, during the process of DCP, the cohort has worked with artist, Bongsu Park whose practice works with dreams to create installations and other artworks. Bongsu creates work through the lens of Korean cultural associations to our dream worlds. The experience of bringing social dreaming together with Bongsu's arts practice inspired one participant to apply for funding from Civic Square's Dream Fund so that the 'exhibiting' season could include a public offer in collaboration with Bongsu. As I write this blog, the plans for this are still emerging.

However, this is one way in which social dreaming has provided a stimulus for the deepening of creative practice. Participants and faculty have also commented on the way in which social dreaming matrices have acted as a container for the DCP community to surface themes relevant to the programme, to organisational life and to the wider context of the pandemic underlying the 2020/2021 experience.

The themes for each of the seasons seemed to be mirrored within dreams shared in the matrices. For example, in early matrices, dreams of apocalypse, connection and disconnection, boundaries, rooms, buildings and lack of control connected to themes of curation and care, artefacts and objects of organisation.

Working through Spring and Summer 2020 was a period of adjusting to a visceral not knowing. Participants considered what it meant to be part of a temporary organisation at this time, how feelings and experiences generated through DCP could be seen as a mirror to organisational life - a mirror where some of the apocalyptic fears could be spoken and assumptions around organisation and community could be challenged and questioned.

Other dreams, like the following fragment, resonated with themes around power, politics and projection, performance and systems:
I'm floating above a maze of boxes, in a rhythmic movement, like a fly trapped in a lampshade. I'm not inside the maze but floating above it, looking down at it, I can see the layout. I'm free in the wind but I can't escape.
Not only did dreams from early matrices become associations in later matrices, but the conversations within and outside of matrices enabled the work to move between dreams, specific organisational dilemmas and potential responses to these, the creation of new artistic pieces, and a sense of greater meaning-making of the experience of undertaking DCP during a pandemic.

We are still making sense of the experience so far of this prototype year of Deepening Creative practice and are planning to do some further analysis of the matrices, and their relationship to the work of DCP. For now, as we absorb the richness of the experience of the last year, we look forward to the second year of DCP beginning and wondering how Social Dreaming will support the work of the next cohort.

Heather Stradling
Co-Director, Deepening Creative Practice

Find out more about Deepening Creative Practice.

To receive news about art and organisation and/or our 3-monthly Newsletter, join our mailing list - you can tailor what information you receive. View our Professional Development Prospectus.

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Social Dreaming as container - The Tavistock Institute

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to help deepen creative practice with organisations The first cohort of Deepening Creative Practice with organisations has now completed the four seasons - from Spring to Winter - with the fifth, 'exhibiting' season due to take place this coming Spring.

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His practice is rooted in working with the most senior corporate executives and their teams. Demystification of behaviour in Boardrooms and helping to identify meaningful ways to dream and embody role-centred straight-talking in the workplace is one facet of the work.

Leslie draws on his personal experience and his work directing international Group Relations events to discuss leadership, authority and identity in our turbulent times.

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Sadness - Rosamund & Yellow Flowers - Elizabeth

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Sadness - Rosamund & Yellow Flowers - Elizabeth

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That morning my father died
Keeping watch, I’d missed the moment.
We went out to the garden
Messy and unkempt,
I put my bare hands in the dirt with her direction
We only spoke only about the flowers.
Mending those flower beds, pulling the yellow ones,
Working together.
She fell ill soon after.
There would be no gardening together that next summer.
I offered to smoke her cigarette
Face to face
breath slowing
slow
until the last one.

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Light

Burn

Bright.

Head touches heart.

Sparks fly

Ignite.

Is there so much difference

Between heart and head?

d

rt

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An exploration of sheets, water, and natural elements . . . Artist Bernie Kennedy.

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“I love their color and by helping them I help the monarch butterfly.   The ‘milk weed plant’ is their food.  Alas, are they also a temporary organization?”  Elizabeth

“…I am amazed and delighted how art can be woven into the fabric of a country.” Bernie

Seeing the artists outdoors in my local park ….”reminded me that art can be anything and anywhere.  Oils..leaves…”. Claire

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How what we perceive can be altered . . . .

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Entelechy Arts Statement:

We work with a pioneering and diverse range of artists across all art forms, who collaborate with our communities to meet, celebrate, and experience each other and the world.

We believe in the creative power of the individual, and that everyone should have the opportunity to contribute to the creative life of their local community. This richness in sharing stories and experiences of those who can often feel underrepresented, encourages stronger communities, changes perceptions, and ultimately helps people live healthier, happier and more connected lives.

We produce vibrant and important cultural programmes, created by and for the communities we work with, namely isolated older people, those living with profound and multiple disabilities, and those living in care home environments, enabling them to play an active and visible role in the creative life of their community.

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We create opportunities for dancing and using dance to enable our participants and artists... Contact us if you would like to dance.

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Association #1:  Journey – complications, might be cold/hot, wrong road, right road.  Full gamut of emotions as part of the journey . . .

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Nobody knows what they are doing - Claire Finch

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Nobody knows what they are doing - Claire Finch

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Nobody knows what they are doing

What image does our mind create

To translate the unknown.

Our need to make sense

The sound of rain on a dry day.

An alien life form.

Static electricity.

What a worm sounds like.

How little we like to sit

With the

Discomfort

Of not knowing.

Insecurity of feeling stupid, out of our depth, being

Found Out.

The safety of the familiar.

The space we take up as humans.

Our own

Self

Importance.

Is the other more wise?

In circumstances different from those present; or else.

In other respects; apart from that.

In a different state or situation.

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I wonder how others receive this photo I took last week and the title I put on it ? Am curious to receive other perspectives and happy to share mine - but I recognise I was revisiting my childhood area and this loaded the day with a mixture of familiarity and total disorientation and I had to seek some fixed unchanged features to help to orientate me to the changed yet similar environment . I only took a small number of photos but this one seems to hold something special for me which I am keen to explore more about …. and getting other perspectives feels a good starting point

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Death & Skeletons.
Reverse printing, paint & pastel.
What is buried beneath?

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Playing with levels, perspectives and photography.

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I walked the Thames yesterday morning and an art portfolio caught my eye on the river bed . I went down to the river bed to inspect it and found a very wet art book full of lovely pencil drawings and charcoal work . I took it home and carefully separated each page to dry the pages one by one

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A podcast that Eliat recorded the week after we did DCP Spring Season.  It situates the work and practices of the Institute in a really beautiful and interesting way including the integration and emergence of the arts and organisation.
Especially poignant alongside the richness in this space of poems, images, reflections, experimentation and more.

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Our guest this week is Dr Eliat Aram, CEO of The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR).

Dr Eliat Aram has been the CEO of TIHR for over 13 years. The TIHR, a not-for-profit outfit operating in the UK and abroad is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2022 and is a world-leading research, evaluation, consultancy, and professional development organisation. Believing in the abundant potential of human relationships and love for people are the drivers in the way she shapes the direction of the institute, the multitude of its activities as well as her praxis.

TIHR was established in 1947, dedicated to the study of human relations for the bettering of working life. Eliat discusses some of the TIHR developments over the years and shares new directions they are pioneering, particularly in the areas of how aesthetics, art, and place inform our working lives today.

TIHR developed many experiential learning methodologies, drawing on systemic thinking, anthropology, psychoanalysis, and other social sciences, the most well-known are the Group Relations Conferences. Eliat reflects on the importance of this innovative learning methodology and its continued relevance in today's disruptive world. This podcast will be of great interest to all of us indebted to the Tavistock Institute and its positive influence on work, organisations, and society.

Dr Eliat Aram is a Chartered Scientist Psychologist (BPS), a UKCP registered Gestalt Psychotherapist, and has been one of the pioneering members of the CMC (Complexity & Management Centre) of Hertfordshire University. Her theoretical grounding is in complexity theory, organisational studies, Gestalt psychotherapy theory, and systems psychodynamics. She is a keen practitioner of Group Relations, the Tavistock enterprise's core 'learning through experience' practice. She has directed many Group Relations Conferences internationally including the Tavistock Institute's flagship GRC known as the ' Leicester' conference. She has been one of the two directors of the TIHR's certified courses Coaching for Leadership and Professional Development (2014-2017) and co-founder of the Supervision for Coaching and Consultancy course, now in its seventh cohort. She has contributed to all TIHR Professional Development activities and program design. Someone told her recently that perhaps work-life balance is found when one finds their love at, and for, work and life. Working with the dynamic of shame as an integral part of any potentially transformative learning process has been her quest and the tenet of her evolving thinking over the decades of her practice. Someone told her recently that perhaps work-life balance is found when one finds their love at, and for, work and life. She unashamedly thinks this might just be so.

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The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations with Dr Eliat Aram

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Our guest this week is Dr Eliat Aram, CEO of The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR). Dr Eliat Aram has been the CEO of TIHR for over 13 years. The TIHR, a not-for-profit outfit operating in the UK and abroad is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2022 and is a world-leading research, evaluation, consultancy, and professional development organisation.

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Working across a diverse range of digital media and platforms, one of my biggest tasks at the Institute is thinking about how to communicate its work effectively and make it outward focused.

Using my transdisciplinary background and experience in both art and social sciences, I'm supporting Juliet Scott and Heather Stradling in programming and realising our exciting Deepening Creative Practice programme, working closely with participants to help them explore their whole selves. In my role, I liaise with artists, plan and deliver a series of workshops built around the topics of gender and contemporary art, and make sure that the programme is informative as well as transformative.

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I am an art writer and a researcher specialising in contemporary art theory and gender and inclusivity issues.

Spanning the work of the whole organisation, my role at the Tavistock Institute involves engagement, communications, and public relations, as well as acting as a Curatorial Assistant in our new Deepening Creative Practice programme.

My role

Working across a diverse range of digital media and platforms, one of my biggest tasks at the Institute is thinking about how to communicate its work effectively and make it outward focused. Using my transdisciplinary background and experience in both art and social sciences, I will be supporting Juliet Scott and Heather Stradling in programming and realising our exciting Deepening Creative Practice programme, working closely with participants to help them explore their whole selves. In my role, I liaise with artists, plan and deliver a series of workshops built around the topics of gender and contemporary art, and make sure that the programme is informative as well as transformative.

Background

With a BA in Culture, Criticism and Curation and a MA in Contemporary Art Theory (Goldsmiths, University of London), my research and writing have been informed by cultural studies, continental philosophy, feminist and queer theory, and psychoanalysis. I explore societal and equality issues from an interdisciplinary perspective, searching for the answers to some of the most vital questions about identity, selfhood, and belonging that are being asked today.

Experience

For the past five years, I have been working as an art writer and a curatorial assistant, supporting research, communication and dissemination strategies of some of the greatest art galleries and cultural organisations across the globe. I have worked with institutions such as the Delfina Foundation, Camden Art Centre, Contemporary Lynx Magazine, and the Venice Biennale, interviewing artists, promoting and managing events, and planning social media strategies. I bring this experience to what lies at the core of some of the most exciting projects at the Tavistock Institute, our newest area of practice: Art and Organisation - bridging the gap between art and social sciences.

Interests

I am interested in gender and sexuality theory and in how these can be then applied to art and broader societal issues. My latest projects involve exploring 'the post-sexual turn' through Foucauldian idea of the history of the present, where I look at asexuality studies and the theory of 'peak libido'. Having joined the Tavistock Institute in September 2021, I look forward to learning from and growing together with the organisation, searching for ways of bettering our communities and our lives - one step at a time.

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Maria Markiewicz - The Tavistock Institute

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I am an art writer and a researcher specialising in contemporary art theory and gender and inclusivity issues. Spanning the work of the whole organisation, my role at the Tavistock Institute involves engagement, communications, and public relations, as well as acting as a Curatorial Assistant in our new Deepening Creative Practice programme.

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Creating beyond silos - The Tavistock Institute

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I also deliver and support professional development and reflective practice activities, working with partners and colleagues – from providing individual supervision through to facilitating experiential learning events. Previous experience from a career in the arts sector includes the use of creative approaches to education, employability, health and social care issues. This, combined with my MSC Psychology and work as a Psychodynamic Counsellor, informs my practice now as a collaborative and reflective researcher/consultant, able to work with clients across a range of sector and organisational boundaries

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Awakening the creative shadow in each of us.

Readers based in the UK may have come across the recent series of The Choir on the BBC, where Gareth Malone brought music-making into Aylesbury Young Offenders Institute. Over two episodes, young men who spent most of their days in prison cells, serving sentences for crimes committed at a young age, presented Gareth with what might have been his biggest challenge to date. As he adapted his practice, invested time in building relationships and shared with the young people his musical expertise as they shared their creative ideas and life experience with him, the change was palpable. One example was of a young man initially demonstrating resistance and rejection, soon expressing joy, play, artistry, critical thinking and leadership, as the creative act ensued. And the process was as much about Gareth's learning as it was the young people's.

My own access to the arts as a young person in the 1980's was rich and varied. Living and being educated on the outskirts of London, gave me free access to some of the best arts experiences possible. Art, music, dance and drama were all part of the curriculum, with visits from professional artists and trips to central London theatres and galleries. Even in an environment where these activities were not as valued as sport or academic education, they were still firmly there. These experiences continue to feed my work now as a Researcher and Consultant at the Tavistock Institute.

However, not everyone has these opportunities or the support to access them as a child. Then, when it comes to being an adult, if you're not working in the arts, then beyond being a 'consumer' of the arts, opportunities to dive into one's own creative potential are ever fewer.

And what if you have been told or think that you are not an artist? You may identify as a scientist / a logical thinker / a practical-minded person - all of which require creativity and imagination but can often be separated off - in the same way, that the science, logical and practical aspects of the arts can go unrecognised.

If we think about Jung's concept of the shadow and understand that what is not acknowledged is still part of us, then where is the creative practitioner in you? And if you are working with organisational change, in what ways are you working with and nurturing the artist in you that may be hidden, shut down, left dormant but which could benefit and possibly transform your practice? When was the last time you truly played, for your own benefit? And how might engaging with this part of yourself release new perspectives, ideas and courage to engage those parts of the client system you work with?

We invite you to start the 2020's with our new, of the time and leaping out of the box programme, Deepening Creative Practice. It will support you to bring all of the different parts of yourself to the work of exploring change - individual, organisational and societal - through co-creating and co-curating a learning experience that includes visiting artists as faculty. If we share the desire to improve the world and the lives of its inhabitants, then our challenge is how to move beyond our silos and comfort zones - to cross boundaries, engage with our discomfort and embrace new ways of translating what we think we know and what we have learnt into what is needed for the future. As with Gareth and the young people at Aylesbury Young Offender's Institute, we look forward to creating this change with you as artists and scientists.

Heather Stradling, Senior Researcher and Consultant at the Tavistock Institute is Co-Director of Deepening Creative Practice.
We welcome conversations, your ideas, thoughts and questions about the Deepening Creative Practice. For more information please contact Lucy Walker l.walker@tavinstitute.org

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Creating beyond silos - The Tavistock Institute

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Awakening the creative shadow in each of us. Readers based in the UK may have come across the recent series of The Choir on the BBC, where Gareth Malone brought music-making into Aylesbury Young Offenders Institute.

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The Alexander Technique

It’s not so much what we decide to do but how we do it – my contention in this talk is that you can give yourself choices about the way you use your self, rather than being restricted by your ‘usual’ way of being, freeing yourself up. Presence and poise – like charisma – are elusive qualities which can’t be ‘bought’ and are not easily defined – are they innate or can they be learned?

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Rachel Kelly: In my role, I bring together comprehensive management of the TIHR marketing, PR and recruitment, administration and support systems that deliver the TIHR’s expanding Professional Development Portfolio of opportunities

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Bernie Kennedy - Starting with nature on the blank canvas

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Bernie Kennedy - Starting with nature on the blank canvas

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I used the grape juice and watercolours and somehow the painting took on a new life ..

I thought lots about the work we had done with Sam in spring so began this canvas with nettles soaked in boiling water then added some squashed grapes followed by some remaining fresh coffee granules from breakfast. Left it to dry then removed the products to just leave the trace marks behind - then just added some acrylics for grape vines and sky. Curious to explore further this integration of nature and modern products

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The Future of Art According to rSimon Denny

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I’m really fascinated by the concept of what is art and the why of art.  The readings coincide with my internal ruminations or visa versa.   I found this series investigating Denny from our readings.

As a group, in exploring hybridity, art and organizational dynamics I’m thinking about the journey, the evolution we’ve been on since last October.   I’m reading my journal and reflecting.  Sometimes I wonder if any of it connects and then I read something and have an epiphany that yes, yes it does.

There are other videos in this series, worth a look.

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The Future of Art According to Simon Denny

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Thinking of Bernie’s beds & sheets. The different paraphernalia of work. The pinstripe suit is out of vogue, dated and power now appears in more disguises. In a hospital what do different uniforms signify? Status is conferred by subtle shape shifting.

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My work at The Tavistock Institute involves cross-disciplinary working between the visual arts and social science.

As the Director of our newest area of practice, Art and Organisation, my work at The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR) means moving amongst the visual, performing, embodying arts and social science; an inter-disciplinary role that involves working (psycho)dynamically from within to outside the organisation to open up spaces for conversations of arts and culture at work. As part of that, I am pleased to be launching and co-leading with Heather Stradling the new programme Deepening Creative Practice, which transcends boundaries of art and science and weaves them together in search of new ways of interacting and intervening in and with organisations.

In my consulting practice, I offer arts-based organisational and professional development interventions exploring the role of the artist as a societal change agent. I work with concepts and methodologies from the arts, researching around questions of design, aesthetics, new objects and the meaning of space and place.

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Ode to Bion

Oh Wilfred, Wilfred what did you do
For them to name this room after you?
A holding space to dissect our group,
A container to take a different view.

Oh Wilfred, Wilfred what did you say?
Contrasting this space with the one where we play.
Discomfort of silence, how long will we stay?
Will the group bond together or will fault lines fray?

Oh Wilfred, Wilfred if only we’d met!
You could share the experience, you’d love it I bet!
I’d thank you for the space to which I’m in debt,
And for time to explore that I will not forget 😉

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In out in in out out

Playing with in and out on Vimeo

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In in whilst out out ? Or in whilst out? Or in then out ?

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Sometimes it's the words that get in the way. Even I will say, 'well, I'm not an artist, I can't draw,' but who sets the standard? Can we try on different mediums like photography, painting, writing, designing, curating, dancing and allow for different personas and perspectives? Maybe I'm giving myself permission to explore more.

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The Sick Rose

I have revisited a multi media image I created (pastel, ink, paint and paper) inspired by William Blake's poem: 'The Sick Rose'.

-Ink is the worm, ink is the healer, staining and blotting, blanking and blotting out.
-Pastels are the smudge and adaptability, moving and changing.
-The rose is red, blood not crimson.

O Rose thou art sick
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out they bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does they life destroy

If an organisation or group is a 'bed of crimson joy', what does it mean when the worm 'flies in the night' to destroy it? What does it mean to be known in a group and then not to be known? What does it mean for all of you to be accepted and then for part of you to be hidden? Can the group survive the 'howling storm'?

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The remnants of one season trapped by the next ... Claire Finch

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The remnants of one season trapped by the next ... Claire Finch

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Thinking of transitions, water solidifying to ice, leaves tumbling to leave skeletal branches, blue skies turning white