Started in 2017, the Épistémologie et Méthodologies de la recherche en art et design (Epistemology and Research Methodologies in Art and Design) programme is based on creating introductory and effective research practices in art and design. This training course lays down research fundamentals, yet it also studies how research can be financially self-sufficient and encompass the establishment. Currently, only one student is enrolled in the programme: Gaëtan Robillard, a PhD student with the INRév laboratory (Art des images, Art contemporain) at Université Paris 8 and at TALM-Tours LDI (Intuitive Laboratory).

Research in art and design begins with the act of creation, with an understanding and appraisal of creation and production procedures. Given the historical and conceptual relationship to genius, notably Kant’s classic aesthetics, artists do not need to justify their creations while art researchers must focus on the research process from the subject statement to its formal rendering using available tools and concepts. Such an approach also requires calling attention to its limits and aporia. Rather than assuming there is an identity between art and design, common differences and perspectives are identified to examine how each requires new research protocols. With that in mind, the research centre which structures the professors’ or affiliated researchers’ research, also hosts PhD students.

Theme 1. Research genealogy and the latest news
Study and report on latest developments in art and design research to learn about works created over the past twenty years in France and abroad to draw a critical genealogy.

Theme 2. Structuring the epistemological scope and ongoing processes
Understand the content of knowledge gained over the past twenty years, in France and abroad, to comprehend the relationship between the knowledge produced and the art and design research process. 

Theme 3. Collaboration between disciplines
Organise collaboration between TALM student-researchers and researchers in other disciplines. Calls for interdisciplinarity are multiplying, primarily in English-speaking countries and more gradually in France. Most often this becomes an object-discipline like fashion studies or food studies, leading to the possibility of art or design studies. It is important to examine the actions’ underlying assumptions and limits. Is there a middle ground between a discipline with no substantive core and one that draws its coherence from other component disciplines such as philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, semiotics and technical.