School of Decorative Arts: towards a school of transitions?

For its director Emmanuel Tibloux, the School of Decorative Arts must affirm its mission as a school of transitions and designers of our living environments. An objective which goes through the placing at the heart of the educational project of the principle of transition and by the greater transversality of the teaching of the disciplines within the establishment.

During the interview he gave us last spring ( Intramural 208 ), Emmanuel Tibloux, director of the School of Decorative Arts, had evoked the main lines of the clear repositioning of the institution he heads in terms of ecological transition. He also mentioned the launch of a post-master program devoted to design in rural areas.
During a meeting organized with the press in the premises of the prestigious establishment on rue d’Ulm, the one whose mandate has just been renewed for three new years deepened the objectives he intended to focus on this principle. transition, in particular by supporting the idea of a National School of Decorative Arts better focused on its mission as a school of transitions and designers of our living environments.

Ecological, territorial and social transition at the heart of the School of Decorative Arts project

The principle of transition is indeed at the heart of the school’s project. Emmanuel Tibloux recalls in this regard the action plan imagined with regard to the ecological transition, designed to be better integrated into the training provided (better use of materials, reaffirmation of short circuits and savings of means in projects), but also in the operation of buildings (after the energy audit, an audit of digital practices will be launched) and in the events organized by the school where an even greater place will be given to living things. As Emmanuel Tibloux reminds us, “We have to invent new ways of doing things, and this principle of transition allows us to contextualize what creates a crisis between the old and the new” .

However, this principle of transition is intended to be much broader. The transition must also be considered on a territorial level, for example by opening up to rurality where essential questions are played out (digital divide, access to public services) about which Emmanuel Tibloux thinks that design can provide his expertise. This is the whole idea of the rural worlds design postmaster program opened this year in Nontron in the Dordogne.

More broadly, social transition is pointed out as a primary objective for the years to come. Emmanuel Tibloux notes in fact the too great homogeneity of the profile of the School’s students and the low rate of scholarship holders. The entrance examination, which has already integrated an increased principle of anonymity in its first selection phase, continues to evolve to simplify itself and to bring itself closer to current practices (the digital file replacing the boards for the study of the documents in the file). In addition, preparatory course actions in high schools in popular districts (Paris Xe, Aubervilliers) will be increased under the supervision of a project manager ensuring a principle of upstream monitoring and with educational content designed directly by graduates. from school. In association with the Ateliers Médicis, the project to set up the La Renverse school in Seine-Saint-Denis intends to create an alternative teaching principle with different levels of attendance. The objective is to design a complementary system for about twenty students, with the idea of opening an alternative school in 2025, without a diploma but better anchored in these urban areas.

Articulation of training and transversality of disciplines

Within the School directly, the educational project is expanding and intends to better integrate the major forms of social transformation of our time (ecological emergency, but also place given to women in creation, reflections around less ethnocentric teaching) taking into account, as Emmanuel Tibloux specifies, the time needed between the need expressed by some to quickly change things and the institution’s more balanced patience.

More concretely, the objective is also to give greater priority to the transversality of teaching and the articulation of practices. The National School of Decorative Arts is actually a little ten schools in one, with training covering all fields of design (graphics, objects, textiles and materials, clothing), but also arts and cultural industries, going as far as fashion and animation cinema. By imagining the evolution of the “360 ° school” that he oversees, Emmanuel Tibloux recalls that in addition to the importance of practical and theoretical training, the School of Decorative Arts also gives more specifically a large place to training. technical.

The educational project therefore aims to better articulate training and research according to the idea of an applied research principle found in the large research laboratory, in the relevance of doctoral courses and patent filings. The articulation between visible cultures (the construction of an image or a form) and material cultures (the right choice of material) must be enhanced through the development of the material library, because this relationship to material is still too little present in the artist’s choices if we compare them to those of architects or engineers for example.

Relations between each educational sector must finally give more space to transversality, so that, for example, scenographers and graphic designers can work together. The overhaul of the masters therefore includes an hourglass course system, with a first generic year, then two years of sectoral apprenticeship, and finally a fourth year with the possibility of crossing over. As Emmanuel Tibloux points out, “ We must train actors capable of taking the measure of the complexity of the world ”. And what could be better than the transversality of disciplines to fully understand the transversality of life in the real world?

Laurent Catala

Find the intervention of Emmanuel Tibloux during the talk about the Young Creation, Intramuros-Paris Design Week.