Research at the School

The major themes that drive research at Ensad Limoges follow the main directions of the school:

  • Territories of the living
  • Traditional gestures/Innovative gestures
  • Image/Imaginary

The school library and the artists' book center (cdla) of Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche are essential partners in this research process. The seminars, supplemented by interventions from dedicated theorists, constitute one of the theoretical contributions of the ARCs (Research and Creation Workshops).

A unique search

Trying to define research-creation is a challenge given the diversity of practices and methods. However, the articulation of theory, critical thinking and plastic or design practice seems to be the heart of all research-creation work.
The artist-researcher questions our relationship to the world, develops thought and produces knowledge like any other researcher. Perhaps he or she places them in other places, those of the sensitive, the intangible, the unspeakable. Research in art and design is complex, it is multiple, it is rich in encounters between things and people, and in reflections on "doing".

Art schools defend the singularity of the research they practice. The place of the plastic form or the design object is essential. Because the plastic form constitutes, like a dissertation or thesis, a restitution of the research. Theory and practice feed each other, in a constant back and forth between "thinking" and "doing". Thus we can consider that research in art and design constitutes one of the richest and most innovative forms of research in that it gives rise to the new, the supplement, the other.
Research at Ensad Limoges echoes this plurality and this richness.

Ensad has undertaken to structure and make more visible the research that is carried out there, supported in this approach by a Scientific Council, meeting for the first time in the fall of 2024, made up of personalities from the world of art and design who contribute, through their discussions and opinions, to nourishing the reflections and refining the structuring. The formats of research at the school are multiple: Research and Creation Workshops (ARCs), seminars, conferences, research-creation residencies, study days, exhibitions, publications, master's theses.

The CCE (Ceramics as Experience) research lab, created in 2015 with the aim of positioning ceramics at the centre of research outside of any theme, is today an experimental space focusing research on the links between traditional techniques and new technologies, with a transversal aim.

It is placed in parallel with the three research axes identified as being at the heart of reflections and practices: Territories of the living, Traditional gestures/Innovative gestures et Image/imaginary. From these lines of research arise: ARCs (Research and Creation Workshops) carried out by transdisciplinary teams bringing together artists, designers and theorists: Chromoculture. Cultivating color through art and design, Experience of the territory, New Gestures, Artificium, Images & Co. These workshops
constitute collective working times bringing together students, teachers and educational support technicians around defined issues to which all contribute. Porosities and intersections exist which contribute to enriching reflections and practices. The ambition is to prepare students for the practice of research in art and design, emphasizing the methodological, conceptual, contextual and practical specificity of such research. In perpetual questioning, research at Ensad reinvents itself according to projects and experiments, as many proposed responses to the major contemporary challenges.

Master in Contemporary Creation and Cultural Industries (CCIC)

Another aspect of research materializes within the framework of collaborations with the University of Limoges, with the master Contemporary creation and cultural industries (CCIC). Its teaching team brings together artists, designers, art theorists and media culture specialists. The training is based on the complementarity of various disciplinary approaches. She places at the heart of her project the understanding of the mechanisms specific to contemporary creation in the media regime, from the conception of works to their circulation.

Ensad Limoges students have the opportunity to follow a double course at the school and within the CCIC master's degree, which constitutes a good introduction to entry into the 3rd cycle.

In addition to the work already underway with the UFR of letters on the Vanteaux Campus, Ensad has integrated the College of Doctoral Schools of the University of Limoges. This integration facilitates access to different laboratories, promotes a greater diversity of research subjects for future doctoral students (outside the humanities) and opens up funding avenues.

Ensad Limoges is attentive to new doctoral paths in the field of research-creation and wishes to strengthen its approach by implementing dedicated programs structured around two major themes of its teaching: ceramics and sustainable development. Ceramics, as a material and as a field of experimentation by promoting its links with the territory. The ecological transition and its sociological, political and anthropological issues, the main axis of the direction for the next five years.

Scientific Council

In order to structure and develop research within the school, Ensad Limoges set up a scientific council in 2024, which helps it in the development and elaboration of its scientific and artistic projects. The scientific council's mission is to ensure the coherence and methods of implementation of the school's scientific policy by issuing opinions accompanied by recommendations. In addition to people linked to pedagogy and research at the school, its members include artists, designers and theorists whose work converges with Ensad's research topics. Its members are appointed for three years. It meets a maximum of twice a year according to an agenda set by the management and the management of studies and research.

The scientific council decides on the internal procedures for evaluating research activities and their implementation; on requests for research activities from theorists, artists at Ensad and students; on the collection and distribution of budgets to the various research programs; on the choice of orientations of post-DNSEP research systems; on the editorial policy and the methods of restitution of work, as well as on any research project developed by the school internally, externally, with a doctoral school and/or in partnership with a research organization.

The personalities who agreed to contribute to the scientific council are the artist Johan Creten, ceramist; Mathilde Brétillot, designer; Julien Descherre, designer and historian of art and architecture; Alexandra McIntosh, director of the CIAP de Vassivière; Sylvie Coëllier, professor emeritus in the history of contemporary art at the University of Aix-Marseille; Christophe Kihm, teacher at HEAD and author of critical writings as well as Laure Bréaud, doctoral student at the University of Limoges and Ensad. This assembly is completed by two teachers from the school, Delphine Gigoux-Martin and Nicolas Gautron, Emma Bigé, research coordinator teacher, as well as Delphine de Boisséson, director of studies and research, and Françoise Seince, director of the establishment.