Exhibitions

Engineering Imagination: The Making of Welfare State International

The exhibition is open Tuesday-Friday, 09.30-17.00 from 7th May 2026 - September. For further information on visiting us please click here

Welfare State International (WSI) was an alternative arts collective that championed progressive and radical forms of creativity. From 1968-2006 they travelled across the UK and beyond, staging over five hundred elaborate productions with the communities they encountered. From this vast and diverse archive, this exhibition will zoom in on five key productions, The Wasteland and the Wagtail, Lantern Processions, Glasgow All Lit Up, Parliament in Flames, and Raising the Titanic. 

Working under the ethos of free and accessible art for all, WSI aimed to defy the conventions of traditional performance. Productions were brought into the street, everyday people became the cast and crew, and the boundaries between art and life were blurred.

WSI often referred to themselves as Engineers of the Imagination, Civic Magicians and Dream Weavers. From large-scale fantastical feats of engineering to community-wide craft work, they put the creative process into the hands of the people. Focusing on their socially engaged, grassroots approach to theatrical production, this exhibition presents the power of collective creativity that WSI achieved through making and imagination.

The following curated pages are a thematic accompaniment to the in-person exhibition at the Theatre Collection, 21 Park Row, curated by students in History of Art, Liberal Arts, and Theatre with Innovation. Here you can find out more about Welfare State International through audio tours, audiovisual clips and digitised material from the archive. Click on the links below to find out more.