This thesis examines the rise of the archive in arts institutions and cultural awareness; the utilisation of the arts archive as a curatorial resource for organisations to examine and re-evaluate history; and how this plays out alongside developments in the concept of contemporaneity. Central to this enquiry is the case study of New Contemporaries, an annual peripatetic exhibiton programme in the UK that platforms new artists as the emerge from education into the professional sphere. With a dispersed and disparate history, the research focuses on the purpose and potentiality of their archival material, particularly for the period of 1949 to 1980s.