French designer Éric Jourdan has been appointed director of the Saint-Étienne School of Art and Design (Esadse). He will take up his post on July 1.
The appointment of Eric Jourdan as director of Esadse, supported by Saint-Étienne Métropole, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, EPCC and ENSBA Lyon, was unanimously approved on June 19, 2020. by the board of directors.
This marks the culmination of a unique story, which has linked the French designer and the Stéphane school for nearly 40 years. Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Saint-Étienne, then at the Decorative Arts in Paris, Éric Jourdan returned to Esadse in 1994 as a teacher.
Long engaged in transmission, he also taught at ESAD in Reims (1989-1993), led a design workshop at the Beaux-Arts in Paris (1993-1995) and also teaches today at Camondo. He was also a teacher in Slovakia during a semester at AFAD Bratislava (2018), and led a workshop at the Chinese school CAFA in Beijing.
His educational background and his knowledge of the Saint-Etienne ecosystem, as well as his sensitivity to art and design made him a prime candidate. But it is above all his program that seduced: the designer presents a project in line with the identity of the school. Recognized for allocating as much importance to art as to design, Éric Jourdan intends to develop the pedagogy of the school at the crossroads of creation and innovation, of interconnection with the economic territory, and he intends to strengthen the international dimension of this school which enjoys the status of UNESCO Design City of Saint-Étienne.
He will succeed Claire Pelliod (2017-2020), whose leadership was marked by international openness – creation of a double design degree with Tongji University (Shanghai) and a double degree with the university Kookmin (South Korea) – and the strengthening of the school’s presence in the Saint-Etienne region – creation of two exhibition venues in the city center.
