ArchiveWe're building the world's first continuously updated editorial research infrastructure for living cultural systems, published as authoritative dossiers that connect materials, practices, communities, contemporary culture, collections, and institutions in one evolving record.
The Archive is a growing collection of Cultural System Dossiers: the evidence-based record of how one cultural system is made, who holds it, and where it is going.
Every dossier gathers the evidence needed to understand how one cultural system continues to exist across generations, geographies, and contemporary practice.
One dossier documents one cultural system, from its origins to how it lives today and where it is heading. It brings evidence from many disciplines into a single research record, maintained as new evidence appears.
The first cultural systems we will take into deep research.
This is the phase before the research: we are mapping who holds knowledge, who is working, and where the evidence is. These are the systems we approach first. Some begin from a baseline, Ugandan mat weaving, Kuba and Congolese masks, and grow outward; research on wider variants is welcome now. The list itself grows and changes as we go.
We need people in these systems now: researchers, experts, and hands to do the work, and institutions to partner. Volunteer your knowledge, time, or research, and we bring you in as each system opens.
Know a system, a maker, or a community that belongs here? Propose it, with evidence. We build from evidence, so proposals without it are not taken forward.
Read this before you take part.
What the Archive is, what a dossier holds, how research is reviewed, and how communities keep their rights. The method stays in-house; everything else is answered here.
01What is the Archive?+
02What is a cultural system?+
03This is a research phase. What is being funded now?+
04How is research reviewed?+
05Who owns the research, and how are communities credited?+
06How are museums and private collections involved?+
07Who can contribute or collaborate?+
08How are artists, designers, and curators represented?+
09We especially need museums and collections. What do they give, and get?+
10How often are dossiers updated?+
11What is the TIHC Library and Library Index?+
12What happens if new evidence appears?+
The Archive tracks how living cultural systems exist now, and where they are going.
We document how a system lives in the present and how it changes. What you do with that is yours to decide. Among the people who will use it:
The phase before the research is the moment your knowledge shapes the record.
Each contribution enters the Archive as evidence, credited and consented. Every form asks which of the first systems you work in, and enough about you to take it seriously. Have research across several systems? Use the curator form and tick them all.
Every form lets you nominate a practice, a maker, or a community that should be documented, with enough detail for us to follow it up.
This section is for cloud, compute, data, storage and cybersecurity companies. If that is you, it is built for you.
Preserving a cultural system is an infrastructure problem. The companies that solve those best can build this with us.
Every dossier is captured, structured, translated, stored, and kept secure for the long term. For a cloud, compute, data, or security company, this is a visible and meaningful use of what you already build, and a place your name stays in permanently.
What you contribute
- Cloud, storage, and compute
- Translation and speech tools, OCR, digitisation
- Security and long-term preservation
- Developer and design capacity, or funding a named edition
What you receive
- A permanent, named place in the record as an infrastructure partner
- Association with cultural preservation and access, on real work
- A documented contribution for CSR and ESG reporting
- A principled use of your infrastructure your teams and customers can see
Fund the deep research that produces a dossier.
This is the research phase. Your support pays for the fieldwork, documentation, and verification behind one complete cultural system, and keeps it maintained.
TIHC is a Swiss tax-exempt non-profit. For gifts of CHF 150 or more, we issue a donation receipt and tax attestation.
For foundations, companies, and major supporters. An ongoing relationship through the build, and a place in the record.
- Support the research directly.
- One private progress edition each year.
- Named in the supporter index.
- Everything in Friend.
- Named on research published that year.
- An optional closed progress briefing each year.
- Everything in Institutional Partner.
- Founding acknowledgement, held permanently.
- A direct relationship with TIHC leadership.
All partnership conversations are direct with the Archive programme director. No intermediary. A reply within five working days. Companies can also