What role does the hand play in contemporary creation, in arts and crafts? From 25 March to 7 April 2024, Saint-Étienne Higher School of Art and Design - ESADSE (ESADSE) will be marching to the beat of the latest stage of the Arts & Crafts aujourd’hui European research programme, with a week-long run of international workshops and talks open to the general public and followed by an exhibition to tie in with the European Artistic Crafts Days.
A renewed interest in promoting local know-how and the search for more environmentally responsible modes of production are at the heart of the Arts & Crafts aujourd’hui programme, which is helping to train artists and designers who want to address contemporary issues. Managed by ESADSE, the programme brings together arts and crafts and, among other things, seeks to question modes of production from the point of view of the environmental stakes involved. From 25 to 29 March, some fifty students and teachers from the partner schools will be at ESADSE to take part in seven different international workshops. In addition to the workshops, there will be a series of talks by renowned speakers open to all. An exhibition will be held at the Cité du design from 4 to 7 April 2024.
We are very proud to be hosting so many students and teachers from all over the world who have come to work with us in Saint- Étienne at ESADSE on research subjects that are more relevant than ever. The Arts & Crafts aujourd’hui programme promotes innovation as well as seeking to transform the ways we look at and use things by facilitating collaboration between the artistic trades, craftspeople, designers and artists. There is a growing feeling that now is the time to promote local know-how once again. It is accompanied by an increased interest in the way things are made and everything to do manual skills, the 'specific intelligence of the hand'. This echoes the search for eco- responsible modes of production in a post-industrial era and ties in with the desire to rethink our relationship with objects given the issues we now face.
Art schools partnering Arts &
Crafts aujourd’hui
Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Brussels - ArBA (Belgium)Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava - VSVU (Slovakia)Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Porto - FBAU (Portugal)
School of Visual and Media Arts at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Quebec in Montreal - UQAM (Canada)National Institute of Fine Arts of Tetouan (Morocco)Saint-Étienne Higher School of Art and Design - ESADSE (France)
