Studies at Orléans School of Art and Design are organized in a three-tier curriculum, the first leads to a Bachelor of Arts in Art Studies (French DNA), the second to a Master of Arts in Plastic Expression (French DNSEP), the third to different types of degrees, including the Advanced Research Degree in Design (French DSRD).

The admission to the second-level programme is submitted to a specific procedure.

MA specializations

    Fourth year

    From their acquired knowledge, students build their course, deepen their theoretical learning, culture and at the same time, develop a personal plastic project. This project is the focus of their artistic training. The thesis is the centre of the intellectual training, enabling the articulation of the theoretical with the plastic approach.

    During the semesters 7 and 8 (4th year), students acquire all the fundamentals needed for their diploma project: guidance in their personal plastic project, theoretical training, practical English learning. A maximum 6-month traineeship or a mobility period abroad are equally part of the 4th year curriculum.

    Furthermore, whatever the specialization or course chosen, students receive a diversified and transversal education appertaining to showcasing, drafting projects, production and dissemination practices, as well as  the professional specificities of the world of art and design.

    Finally, students are involved in a time of collective or collaborative research work, devised to initiate them to the logics and methods of research in art and in design. This shared time also allows students to understand how projects are co-produced with architects, artists, designers, engineers, scientists, theorists, or additionally political and economic decision-makers. This time appears in the research in art and design programmes (RAD).

    Fifth year

    The fifth year evolves around the students’ personal projects and the teachings which enable to feed the project and consider a prospective professional life. Students remain highly involved in one of the four research in art and design programmes.

    The end of the fifth year is validated by the French, Diplôme National Supérieur d’Expression Plastique, Master level.

    Art and Design Research Programmes

    Research activity at ESAD Orléans takes place within Art and Design Research Programmes, designed by ECOLAB researchers on a variety of timeframes (bi-annual or longer). The PADs form the core of postgraduate and doctoral programmes. Linked to the school’s artistic mission, they aim to tackle the world head-on.

    They are based on stable teams comprising not only ESAD Orléans lecturers in design, art and theory, and studio leaders, but also external researchers from various disciplines and scientific fields. Each programme may call upon guest speakers. One of them may be invited to follow the programme from start to finish, providing an outside perspective. Because it is difficult to conduct research alone, a Design Research Programme involves several partners in its research (universities, laboratories, art and design schools, engineering or business schools, museums, art centres, etc.).

    As a collaborative creative process, a Design Research Programme no longer distinguishes between ‘practice’ and ‘theory’. Everything is action. Thus, a Design Research Programme is a period of cross-disciplinary learning involving practical, theoretical and technical knowledge; a time for shared reflection (study days, symposia, conferences); a time for collaborative or collective production (in the form of work sessions or workshops); and a time for presentation. These three phases must be interlinked, insofar as, as McLuhan wrote, the medium is the message. Work sessions may take place outside ESAD Orléans, in the neighbourhoods and towns of the metropolitan area or elsewhere, in France or abroad.

    Students are directly involved in the collaborative, shared or collective creative process of the Design Research Programme. In other words, the Design Research Programme teaches students to address the issue of internal governance, to find their place within a project, to share resources, to overcome the scrutiny of others, to cope with failure, to improvise and challenge their own ideas, and finally to know how to turn their work into an exhibition. It is important to emphasise that the Design Research Programmes are designed to introduce students to research by involving them in the work of researchers. Nevertheless, the work produced at the end of the Design Research Programmes is exhibited, disseminated and placed under the collective responsibility—ideally on an equal footing—of the researchers and student-researchers of the Design Research Programme.

    Master of Arts/Diplôme National Supérieur d’Expression Plastique (DNSEP)

    The DNSEP validates the fifth year of studies and is a Master’s level. It is on the French National Directory of Professional Certification, at level I.

    The DNSEP examination✨ consists in part of a showcasing of the student’s plastic project, viva of master’s thesis centred on their plastic practice, as well as a critical presentation of the whole approach before a jury. The latter is composed of four personalities exterior to the school, and one school representative.

    Assessment criteria of the DNSEP:

    • Presentation of the work (formal and critical) 
    • Elaboration of the project and research process
    • Positing the work (pertinence of the references and articulation of the ideas; level of conceptualisation)
    • Pertinence of the concept and quality of the plastic formulation

    The DNSEP presentation is preceded by an interview in front of an internal commission who decides, after assessment, on the capacity of the student to defend their diploma. The assessment criteria of the student’s capacity are:

    • Assertion of an artistic personality and the ability to carry out an original approach, in the specific discipline
    • The capacity to carry out a project independently
    • The capacity to carry out a project in a collective or collaborative framework
    • The adaptability of different professional and cultural contexts, including an international and/or intercultural approach
    • The capacity to conduct a critical work.

    For further information, consult the statutory text.

    Practical information

    Language of instruction
    French

    Annual tuition fees
    €830 (€475 for scholarship holders)

    Admission
    Interview with the postgraduate admissions panel.
    For further information

    Contact
    Academic Office