The dissertation, an initiation to research

The dissertation is a special moment of research allowing the student to take a look at and take a step back from their visual arts practice.

In the 3rd year, the place of writing in visual arts practice is questioned during dedicated courses, which give rise to an edition at the end of cycle 1, the form of which is free and which questions the multiple facets of the work of writing (internship report, poetry, critical text, etc.). This written document, which can be shaped in the publishing-printing workshop, makes it possible to produce texts on visual arts work or on professional experiences. Students project their visual arts thinking into the exercise of writing. This work raises the question of the writing tool: how, for a student in a higher art school, to take hold of it, to work on it, to best render what a reflection on a visual arts proposal is, or even to find a specific visual form, literary, cinematographic or sound, to reflect it.
The dissertation project must be presented at the end of the 3rd year (L3) for those who wish to continue in the second cycle.

At the beginning of the 4th year (M1), each student engages in dialogue and monitoring with one or two dissertation directors, a teacher from the school, a practitioner and a theoretician. These individual times are enriched by seminars in which students are brought together in small groups and present the progress of their research to two or three teachers who are not their directors, which allows for another perspective and a sometimes necessary step back from their work. Based on the research carried out throughout the 4th year, work on layout, layout and graphics is carried out, supervised by a teacher and in dialogue with the dissertation director. It allows the student to think about the visual and editorial restitution of this dissertation work.

Courses in graphic design, art and publishing history, books and printed arts are given throughout the curriculum and allow the affirmation of artistic positions with regard to publishing.
The presence of a bibliography is obligatory, reading being essential, but it can be accompanied by other sources such as the interview, the plastic work of the student and other artists, the field survey – all different research methods to which the students are introduced.
This individual research work that the dissertation represents is supplemented by various devices developed with a view to nourishing theoretical and plastic reflections and constituting a second part of the initiation to research.

DNSEP dissertations can be consulted at the library (on site). They are referenced in their catalog, click this link to read the memos made available.