Institute for Arts and Creation

The Institute for the Arts and Creation is the latest initiative to emerge from Sciences Po’s historic commitment to embedding the arts within a curriculum focusing on the humanities and social sciences, and of fostering dialogue between all three disciplines. The institute was opened in March 2023.

Three main objectives: 

• Diversification and experimentation within education. The Institute’s mission is centered on innovating in artistic methods, developing creative skills and bridging disciplines. It will support faculty members in introducing new teaching and evaluation methods. It will promote existing initiatives from different degree programmes, while broadening the range of artistic content available to students and the wider university community.
• Development of a link with research bridging the arts, humanities and social science disciplines, in all their forms.
• Civic engagement, by raising awareness of the arts – particularly the visual arts – among high school students and sharing teaching resources and methods with external teaching communities, as well as through urban outreach.

The sum of many parts

The wrtiting and rhetorix center

This programme aims to prioritise reflection on the use of language at Sciences Po and to develop students’ skill in writing and speaking, inventiveness, and appreciation of literature. Key to its success is a writers-in-residence scheme offering teaching and several events each year.

The writer in residence chair, lanched in 2019 objective is to stimulate dialogue and enrich the teaching and learning relationship by inviting students to take part in writing projects. They can develop their creativity through workshops in which they practice creative writing and discuss it with their peers. Such creative exercises empower students. The cognitive impact of writing is well known: writing encourages depth and clarity of thinking and helps put students in a more favourable position for learning in other disciplines.

Cinema chair

Each year a representative of the world of cinematography is chosen as the Cinema Chair. Each representative leads four masterclasses during which they present their work, invite other leading figures of their choice, and encourage reflection on creativity and its representation. Claire Denis, the director of Chocolat, Both Sides of the Blade, and Stars at Noon, will be Sciences Po’s first Cinema Chair.  For the official launch of the Chair on Sciences Po’s Paris Campus, the university organised a screening of Denis’s film White Material, followed by a masterclass led by the director.

Music and dance chair

The Institute for the Arts and Creation aims to cultivate a space for reflection through music and dance.  To achieve that aim, a Chair dedicated to those arts has been created, and will be alternately filled by a musician and a dancer and/or choreographer.   He or she will lead four masterclasses during which they will present their work, invite other leading figures of their choice, and encourage reflection on creativity and its representation.  The first Sciences Po Music and Dance Chair is Benjamin Millepied, a dancer, choreographer and director of his own dance company.

Visual arts chair and “through the artists' eye” conference series

A programme of four major conferences per year hosted by Jean de Loisy. De Loisy is known for his major exhibitions and his radio show ‘L’art est la matière’ (France Culture), as well as for having led important institutions including the Palais de Tokyo and the Beaux-Arts de Paris.

An experimental teaching programme: SPEAP

Created in 2010 by Bruno Latour, the Master in Arts and Politics (SPEAP) is a programme currently offered at the School of Public Affairs that will be hosted at the Institute for Arts and Creation from September 2023. SPEAP is the first programme to blend arts and social sciences in equal measure. Its aim is to introduce social science specialists, as well as practitioners from the public and private sectors, to the features and methods of artistic disciplines, while at the same time offering artists a world-class education in the social sciences.

Each year, students of the programme work on group projects addressing real-world issues commissioned by partner institutions, businesses, associations, or individuals. Students also undertake internal debates and collective discussions, as well as external activities on related topics. This work culminates in an end-of-year presentation given to a panel comprised of teachers, experts and commissioning partners; a mandatory requirement of the degree.

The Master’s in Arts and Politics is a full-time programme and takes place over one academic year. It is, however, designed to be compatible with professional work, with an average of one full day of teaching per week, accompanied by compulsory classes as part of the core curriculum at the School of Public Affairs and three weeks of intensive teaching.

Actions outside Sciences Po:

• Support provided to high schools students part of the EOP program, in particular to  help them in the preparation of the Sciences Po picture commentary test.
• Development of civic actions related to art; for example, through writing and reading workshops in hospitals for healthcare staff, patients and their families.
• Strengthen of university partnerships, as it is currently the case with Harvard in regards to the social sciences, and arts.
• Implication of students and alumni members of artistic associations