Press kit

A new building

for the école supérieure

d’arts & medias de Caen

www.esamcaen.fr

Contents

Introduction by Phil ippe Duron

1. The new building

1-1) History of the pro j ect

1-2) Architectur e

1-3) Budget and financing

1-4) State commission for the visual identity of ésam

2. The école supérieur e d’arts et médias de Caen

2-1) History of the school

2-2) Higher education

2-3) Introductory courses in artistic practice

2-4) Cultural programme

2-5) The library

2-6) The restaurant

P ractical information

Introduction

Founded in 1795, the école supérieure d’arts & médias de Caen [ESAM] now occupies a building

designed both with its specific activities in mind and out of the desire to create a challenging

and imposing project.

If an art college in general is primarily a place of higher education for the plastic arts, this new

project is much wider in scope and aims to make ESAM a place open to all sections of the

public, both for the courses it offers amateurs and for its cultural programme. This new building,

a place for exchanging ideas and thoughts about art, will make it easier for students,

professionals, amateurs and novices to meet.

This new school will, in many ways, become one of the talking points of our region.

If the new school is to remain a flagship institution on a national level, it must also widen its

international outreach so that, given the huge competition we see throughout Europe, it

becomes the first choice for future students.

At the very centre of a major renovation project on the Presqu’île de Caen and a prime

example of the most accomplished and forward-looking projects that architecture can offer,

ESAM will be a ground-breaking project providing a window onto the city of the future.

This building is the expression of a desire to provide a high-quality tool to develop the plastic

arts, the likes of which we constantly expect to see in other branches of art and culture (a live

performance, a museum …). Beyond the project itself, it seems essential to me that the means

offered by the Communauté d’Agglomération Caen la Mer [Caen la Mer] should help the

plastic arts to develop in our society.

Lastly, the new building will symbolise the vision that Caen la Mer has for its own development.

Its contemporary architecture, which fits perfectly into its environment, will allow the school to

reflect its times and to combine modernity, simplicity, innovation and the taste for shared

culture. These are the symbols needed to provide a positive image and to add to the

attractiveness of the surrounding area.

Education, urban and architectural planning, image and attraction – these are the issues at

stake. This project, led by Jean-François Milou, an architect specialising in public and cultural

projects, and who has already given Normandy the Cité de la Mer in Cherbourg, is a response

to all these issues.

Thanks to this project, which will charm and unite us all, Caen la Mer is moving forward and

taking the first major step in its desire to develop a cultural policy for the entire region.

Phi l ippe DURO N

Chairman of the Communauté d’Agglomération Caen la Mer

1. The new building

The école supérieure d’arts & médias (ésam) used to occupy four separate sites in Caen. From 5

October 2009, it has been developing its activities and new projects in an 11,500m2 building

designed by Milou and located in the port district in Caen. It is one of the largest and most

beautiful art schools in Europe.

1.1) History of the proj ect

- 2003: the Ecole Régionale des Beaux-arts de Caen [Caen regional school for the fine arts] is

transferred to the Communauté d’Agglomération Caen la Mer [Caen la Mer metropolitan

area].

- 26 September 2004: the council of the Communauté agrees on the principle of constructing a

new building in the port district in Caen.

- 18 May 2005: the architects studioMilou are chosen after a Europe-wide competition attracting

135 entrants, from which 4 finalists were selected.

- 15 February 2007: foundation stone laid

- 27 February 2009: the council of Caen la Mer agrees on the new name for the school: the Ecole

Supérieure d’Arts et Médias de Caen (ESAM).

- 7 May 2009: the keys to the new building are handed over.

- 5 October 2009: the building opens to the public.

1.2) Architecture

Located in the port district and bordered by the river Orne and its canals, the building

designed by studioMilou is built around four landscaped courtyards. The first of these

courtyards is covered: it is a large glass-bound space which forms the visitor reception area

and opens out onto the public areas (restaurant, auditorium, exhibition hall, and library) and

the areas reserved for various study programmes (higher education and visual art awareness

courses). The ground floor (the base of the building) houses the heavier technical workshops

(ceramics, wood, metalwork, resin, lithography, printing, silkscreen printing, photography, etc.).

The first floor houses further workshops for digital technologies (multimedia, video, animation,

3D, etc.). Student workshops are split over the top two floors, around the building’s landscaped

courtyards.

studioMilou architecture

Jean-François Milou was born in Niort. He graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des

Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1978, and worked as an architect under his own name between 1980 and

1995; he founded the studioMilou architectural practice in 1996. studioMilou was re-organised in

2005, bringing together Jean François Milou and the practice’s project managers: Thomas

Rouyrre, Karim Ladjili and Florence Soulier.

Major projects:

- National Art Gallery, Singapore (2013)

- the new Carreau du Temple, Paris (2012)

- the Place de la Brèche (Niort) (2010)

- the Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève (2008)

- the Musée Cocteau, Menton (2007)

- the Musée National de l’Automobile de Mulhouse (2006)

- the Cité de la Mer in Cherbourg and associated projects (2002)

- the Hôtel Administratif in Niort and its surrounding area (2000)

- the Musée des Tumulus in Bougon (Conseil Général des Deux Sèvres) (1993)

photos : Michaël Quemener

Architectural section

“At the end of the nineteenth century, the architect Gaudet may well have told his architecture

students at the School of Fine Arts that ‘a school is a courtyard; a fine arts school consists of

courtyards … and gardens’.

In Caen, the urban setting means that we have to work around the Hall for Contemporary Music.

In this game of composition, we came to the conclusion that ESAM could only be a landscape,

or organic background, etc. It is only when looking more closely, and then from the inside, that

this landscape reveals itself to be a complex architectural composition which frames and

showcases the surrounding urban environment.

The project aims to offer an ‘organic screen’ looking onto the esplanade, a screen which unifies

the entire length of the façade whilst simultaneously offering glimpses into the intimate life of

the building through frames, screens and openings. Behind this large screen are four

landscaped courtyards, one of which is enclosed under a glass roof and provides space for the

school’s reception and cafeteria. The other three are open-air gardens. ESAM’s day-to-day life is

organised around these four courtyards.

The project is a juxtaposition of two layers: a sober, fixed layer of architecture, with a more fluid

landscaped layer which seems to invade the architecture and anchor it into the urban

landscape.” (studioMilou)

The principles of insertion

“The challenging location between the neighbouring EDF site and the Hall of Contemporary

Music, and the long, strip-like nature of the proposed site combine to create a unique urban

context for the ESAM building.

It became quite clear to us that the future school could not be a well-ordered, classic

architectural project with the Cargö and EDF facilities alongside: the new building would be a

background, a new horizon for both these players in the urban landscape.

For this reason, the project offers a simple structure which has the simplicity of a frame from

which the various elements of the site project out.

The project offers a succession of large, landscaped courtyards arranged behind a

monumental ‘trellis-screen’ on the west façade and a stone wall on the east.

The whole project develops between these two elements, with the vegetation in the courtyards

crossing the western façade of the trellis-screens and overflowing onto the pedestrian areas at

the base of the building - it seems to be escaping from the school and invading the public

areas …

From inside the perspective changes: the trees occupy the visual space and the huge uprights

forming the screen open select vertical views towards various points in the urban environment.”

(studioMilou)

Materials and architecture

“The architectural style is one of simplicity and purity, with a rustic, peaceful scale and

character for the internal gardens. The undressed finish of the communal areas (bare concrete,

resin floors, white-painted plaster) provides solidity and reversibility, thus allowing for intensive

use and a variety of activities. Only the auditorium and some private areas have a more

refined finish (wooden parquet floors and facings, acoustic and stage equipment).

The main materials are:

- local limestone for passageways and courtyards, some walls and carved details.

- chestnut cladding for the steelwork, trellis-screens (clapboards in chestnut) and

façades.

- lacquered aluminium for external carpentry.

- resin concrete for workshop floors.

- limestone-aggregate concrete mixed on site protected by protruding limestone

pebbles (for the visible walls).

- oak for internal woodwork, vertical grain parquet flooring and fixed furnishings.

- clear glass for all the windows, glass roofs and walls.

- white plaster for internal facings.”

(studioMilou)

A few figures

ésam is a single 11,500m2 building consisting of:

- 4,750 m3 of concrete

- 413,800 kg of steel

- 10,000m2 of internal walls in reinforced concrete

- 6,000m2 of external walls

- almost 15,000m2 of solid and block-and-beam concrete flooring

- screens 18m high and 150m long

- 52km of wiring

- 18km of network cabling to interconnect the school.

1.3) Budget and financing

Budget (excl. property taxes)

Construction costs, price revisions and other variables: 22,500,000€ Fees etc: 2,700,000€

Insurance: 200,000€

Furniture, removals: 1,690,000€

Telephones and computer networks: 564,000€

TOTAL : 27,654,000 € incl. of all taxes

Of which VAT : 4,532,000€

Total excl. VAT : 23,122,000€

(i.e. 2,467.65€ incl. VAT per m2, for a net surface area of 11,206.60m2)

Finance

European Union – European Regional Development Fund: 4,142,000€

State: 3,748,000€ (of which Ministry of Culture 3,353,000€ and FNADT [national regional

development fund] 395,000€)

The Basse-Normandie region: 3,748,000€

The department of Calvados: 1,000,000€

Caen la Mer: 11,390,000€

Property taxes budget

Total: 1,999,000€

City of Caen: 1,049,000€

Caen la Mer: 950,000€

1-4) State commission for the visual identity of ésam

What is a state commission?

A state commission [commande publique] expresses the desire of the State, in collaboration

with various partners (councils, public bodies or private partners), to enrich the living

environment and develop national heritage through the presence of works of art outside those

institutions which specialise in contemporary art.

It also aims to provide artists with the tools to carry out projects whose scale, context or size

require exceptional means.

photos : Michaël Quemener

A state commission thus involves an object (i.e. art, which, once having left its reserved area

goes out to seek its audience where people live and in the public arena) and a multi-stage

procedure, starting with the original idea for the commission and finishing with the actual

creation of the work by the artist and its reception by the public.

Founded in 1983 within the Centre National des Arts Plastiques by the Délégation aux Arts

Plastiques, the Fonds de la Commande Publique allows public art to be financed in an

appropriate manner so that the contemporary art audience can be widened, and artists

encouraged to create new or experimental works relating to architecture, town-planning, the

countryside, etc.

This policy also aims to enrich the visual perception of the social space, through discussions

and exchanges with contemporary artists.

This voluntary and ambitious initiative, embraced by local councils, has breathed new life into

public art. Visible in a wide variety of places (from an urban setting to nature, from gardens to

historic monuments, from tourist attractions to the new medium of the internet), contemporary

art in public spaces opens up an extraordinary variety of plastic expression and artistic

disciplines: from sculpture to design, from art to new media, from photography to graphic art,

and not least gardens, countryside, light, video, etc.

The way that a state commission actually functions has also changed considerably. The notion

of the work’s use or functionality is no longer challenged – the work can even be ephemeral (on

location or at an event, for example) providing an important, enriching and unique

perception of the space it occupies.

In Caen la Mer it was decided to encourage the creation of a typogramme which would be

immediately accessible to everyone, both students and the public. The graphic system

selected would allow for multiple variations, with regard to communication tools and signage

alike, through an original and recreational visual identity.

Camping Design’s project

The Caen la Mer metropolitan area, with the support of a state commission from the Ministère

de la Culture et de la Communication (Direction régionale des affaires culturelles de Basse-

Normandie) asked the Camping Design studio to produce the new visual identity for ésam

Caen.

Camping Design envisaged a typogramme of the name of the new school: a typographic

scheme based on a typeface designed specifically for this project.

At the heart of this typographic idea there would be a ‘visual disruption’: the Caennaise

typeface has two versions which are intermingled – Caennaise simple and Caennaise ornée on

a background motif based around the apostrophe. This apostrophe, a punctuation mark

selected for the generosity of its form and dynamism as a point of reference, acts both as

ornamentation for the letters and as an autonomous shape capable of pointing in several

different directions, thus becoming an efficient way of identifying the school.

The school’s house and signage style will be designed along the same lines – the two fonts and

apostrophe logo will produce a rounded, clear and well-spaced style which can easily be

integrated into the massive, dense architecture.

Neither illustrative nor decorative, this style will allow the building to be identified

immediately and light-heartedly as a school of art, i.e. an institution with very clean contours

but with a more ‘ethereal’ space for artistic discovery and experimentation, and a multitude of

modes of expression.

Provisional budget

Expenses:

Design of the house style and its variations: 30,000€ Design of the signage and its supervision during manufacture: 30,000€ Manufacture and fitting of the signage: 50,185€ Total excl. VAT: 110,185 €

VAT: 13,136.26€

Total incl. VAT: 123,321.26 €

Finance :

Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication: 60,000 €

Communauté d’Agglomération Caen la Mer: 63,321.26 €

Total : 123,321.26 €

photos : Michaël Quemener

2. The école supérieure

d’art & médias de Caen

Founded in 1795 after the main national schools were established, ésam Caen has developed

over the years into its present form of a higher education establishment for the plastic arts

under the aegis of the Ministère de la Culture. Its new building was designed to answer the

needs and specific requirements of its various activities: higher education and research,

introductory programmes in the plastic arts for the general public (adults and children), and

new cultural projects.

2.1) History of the school

- 1795: the Ecole Centrale de Caen is founded - the university’s drawing classes (evening classes

only) are transferred to it.

- 1804: the Ecole Centrale is closed down and a municipal school for drawing is founded, run by

the museum’s conservator in three adjoining rooms of the museum in the former Couvent des

Eudistes on the Place Royale (which was renamed the Place de la République in 1883). The

school has around sixty pupils.

- end of the 19th century: around one hundred pupils per year attend the school.

- 1945: following the destruction of the museum in 1944, the school and conservatory of music take

possession of a former privately-owned mansion at 83 rue de Geôle. Two types of teaching are

now offered: permanent courses for young people leaning towards the artistic professions, and

evening classes for adults and children.

- 1954: introduction of the Certificat d’Aptitude à une Formation Artistique Supérieure (CAFAS)

[Higher Certificate for the Arts]. The municipal school for drawing adopts the name Ecole

Municipale des Beaux-Arts de Caen.

- 1960: given the size of the buildings, places are limited to 110 pupils (495 including evening

classes).

- 1978: rising numbers mean that four classrooms are created in the rue Pasteur (the ‘Pasteur’

annexe), and the former La Folie Couvrechef primary school is acquired.

- 1980: the Graphic Design option is offered, leading to a Diplôme National des Arts et

Techniques (DNAT) [National Diploma in Arts and Techniques] after three years.

- 1982: the buildings of the former bus station are acquired.

- 1985: the former Garage Talbot in the rue de Bayeux is acquired.

- 1988: the former primary school in the rue du Chemin Vert (the ‘Dunois’ annexe) is acquired to

replace the annexe in the rue de Bayeux.

- 1990: the former primary school in the Pierre Heuzé district (the ‘Pierre Heuzé’ annexe) is

acquired to replace the Folie Couvrechef annexe.

- 1991: the Communication option is offered which leads to a Diplôme National d’Arts Plastique

(DNAP) [National Diploma in the Plastic Arts] in three years, and to the Diplôme National

d’Expression Plastique (DNSEP) [National Diploma in Plastic Expression] in five.

- 2009: the Ecole Régionale des Beaux-arts Caen la Mer becomes the école supérieure d’arts &

médias de Caen. It moves out of its old buildings (rue de Geôle, the Pasteur annexe, the Dunois

annexe and the Pierre Heuzé annexe) into a new building in the Cours Caffarelli in the port

district of Caen.

2.2) Higher education

ésam Caen takes 250 students each year; entry is by entrance examination, or parallel

admission and panel interview. Teaching methods include lectures, practical exercises in the

different means of expression in studios, workshops, personal research and professional

training courses. Teaching is provided by a staff of 25 representing both the theoretical and

practical fields - they are well-known artists in the field of contemporary creation and their

professional activities represent a wide variety of competencies and types of intervention. The

studios where the different techniques are learned are supervised by 13 specialist technicians.

Since the introduction of the European LMD scheme (Bachelor’s – Master’s – Doctorate), and the

ECTS (European Credit Transfer System), study is organised into semesters. The study

programme prepares students to take diplomas in the LMD scheme: DNAT, DNAP and DNSEP.

Three streams are offered in the first study cycle in Caen (Graphic Design, Art, and

Communication-Media), followed by two second cycles (Art and Communication-Media) which

include three specialist departments: ‘New spatialities’, ‘The poetronics of waves’ and

‘Publishing, illustration and typography’.

First cycle : the Graphic Design option

Graphic art is visible on a daily basis in the home and in the public domain – it is a permanent

fixture in the cultural and economic construction of society. Graphic design has its own private

language - it has its own codes which encompass those of our surroundings and it is present

everywhere where signs help to give meaning, and where there is communication, regardless

of the medium. Graphic design thus enters into a dynamic and constant exchange with society,

and transforms it into a key for reading the times, thus helping construct human activity

throughout the world.

The Graphic Design option is a short cycle after the two semesters which constitute the

foundation course. It opens up the whole field of graphic art and leads to the award of the

DNAT.

Semesters 3 and 4 are dedicated to the acquisition of the tools and knowledge required in the

field of graphic art: publishing, illustration, visual identity, photography, typography, web, etc.

Learning these different graphic skills involves reflection and experimentation. This constant

movement is a source of creation. Commissions, competitions and training courses replace the

lessons and gradually introduce the student to the complex, real world of the professional.

Semesters 5 and 6 allow students to make choices about their work and research, which lead to

the elaboration of a personal project. The year is punctuated by one-to-one meetings with the

various teachers, which aim to transform the DNAT project into a professional tool in order

better to understand its entry into the world of work.

Students can continue their research into publishing, illustration and typography in all their

forms in a second cycle consisting of four semesters leading to the Communication DNSEP in

‘Publishing, illustration and typography’.

First and second cycles : the Art and Communication-Media options (and their three

departments)

The Art and Communication-Media options prepare students for the DNAP examinations in six

semesters, and for the DNSEP four semesters thereafter – ten semesters in total. There are two

cycles: Programme (semesters 3 to 6) and Project (semesters 7 to 10).

The Art option

The field of contemporary creation now consists of many different forms, and the notion of ‘work’

is at the heart of the creative suggestions which should drive those students taking the Art

option. This notion of ‘work’ hails back to the practice of many branches of the arts and their

cultural, practical and methodological constants. The Art option aims to train artists and visual

creators in fields such as drawing, painting, engraving, sculpture, photography, video and

installation – all the techniques and means available in the school are at the students’ disposal.

Students must produce a work based on open and experimental practice. Different teaching

methods are used: theory and practice, workshops, and personal research based on the open

and well thought-out use of all artistic means to acquire and express the technical and

conceptual competencies required to construct an authentic artistic project, displaying a

wide cultural inscription in the context of contemporary art.

photos : Michaël Quemener

The work, based largely on experience and confrontation with the subject, thoughts,

techniques, and current events leads the student to produce a personal and sensitive project

and to create his own vision of the world.

The research demands huge personal input from the student throughout the entire course, and

a methodology which is closely followed by all the teaching staff. The work, which is produced

in group sessions, feeds off meetings and the confrontation with a variety of approaches and

ideas, thus allowing each student to define his territory and gradually to create his own

identity in a field of contemporary art.

The demand for an autonomous approach and the multi-faceted teaching methods guarantee

a solid and rich background in the field of artistic creation for the holders of the diploma. In

addition to an artistic career geared primarily towards research, the multiplicity of skills

acquired allows them to deal with the most diverse of professional situations.

The Communication-Media option

‘New spatialities, The poetronics of waves’

The way our urban and technological environment is changing makes up the core of the

activity of the Media department. Our towns are built around, and crisscrossed by networks

and particle flow, be it electromagnetic waves, radio, television, mobile telephones, the

internet, GPS, technical networks linked to the organisation of space, land and the economy –

particle flow, underground networks, antennae, transport, satellites, etc. All these phenomena

are developing within a framework of global exchange and flow. This flow and these networks

have a great effect on our urban and social condition, our living environment and our

perception of time.

The way urban space has mutated has spawned and encouraged various practices: social,

economic and cultural (mobility, use of brown land and abandoned land, ‘new areas for art’),

or sound-based, musical and choreographic (urban culture, industrial music, sonorous objects),

and even communicational (social networks, telephony, video).

All these changes which embrace scientific, technological and urban data, provide great

riches for artistic creation and research. Technological innovation exploits electromagnetic

waves for the creation, transmission and diffusion of images and sounds. Web radio, audio and

video streaming, digital television, GPS – fixed or mobile, wireless or otherwise – this is all new

territory ripe for exploration and whose surface has barely been scratched by artists and

almost ignored by art schools. We aim to question the philosophical, artistic and long-term

aspects of these phenomena within a culture of ‘flow’ and the spiritual.

The different teaching methods used in the Media option, based on the critical study of current

practices in the fields of image and sound, and the space-time aspects they generate, should

provide students with the opportunity to fit into multi-disciplinary groups, to take part in

operational practice and develop a unique method of artistic reflection and expression. The

opportunities for intervention are numerous: digital art, installations, multimedia, video,

animation, sound design, web design, perennial or ephemeral fixtures (mobile or fixed, interior

or exterior), redeveloping a site, artistic intervention and creation in a town, scenography,

concerts, performance, etc.

The Media option gives students the technical and cultural tools they need to formulate the

fundamental and trans-disciplinary issues which form the basis of their individual projects.

The Communication-Media option

‘Publishing, illustration and typography’

This option aims to allow students to develop their own experiments by encouraging inter-

disciplinary exchange and transversality of practice.

Typography is the main subject of these two years, and all the means of communication

specific to it are explored: books, publishing, press, graphic art, illustration, web, signage, etc. It

is the centre-point for cultural exchanges and projects. The teachers of the various disciplines

take great care to coordinate their approaches to typography, backed up by regular

interventions from external professionals with a view to consolidating each student’s approach,

respecting their personality and encouraging their vocation.

The course encourages the student to adopt the position of creator. The student must also be

able to demonstrate his commitment by producing a dissertation based on his own practice of

graphic design which will lead to the formulation of a personal research project in the fifth

year. More than just a response to a commission, graphic art is above all the expression of

visual, committed and personal thoughts about the outside world.

Resources

ésam Caen provides exceptional study and research conditions to all its students, whether in

terms of living space or resources:

- a silkscreen printing workshop with several presses

- an intaglio, woodcut and aquatint printing workshop

- a specialist workshop offering all types of moulding techniques

- a ceramics, porcelain and earthenware workshop

- a resin and plastics workshop

- a workshop for all types of woodwork

- a metal workshop where all types of metal are cut and welded (bending, forging,

casting)

- a lithography and photolithography workshop

- a printing shop offering wood and lead typography, offset and digital printing

- a construction, interactivity and robotics workshop

- a film-processing laboratory

- two photography workshops (black and white, and colour) – one in large format

- a photography studio

- a digital photography workshop

- a dust-free painting booth

- video equipment with a device for superimposing

- video montage booths

- a textile, paper and sewing workshop

- two sound studios, and sound-montage booths

- IT rooms for lessons, digital workshops in typography, page setting, multimedia,

animation and virtual 3D

- spaces for exchanging views

- dozens of spaces for students’ work-groups

- a documentation centre and library specialising in art, its history and theories.

International relations

The école supérieure d’arts & médias de Caen has been running a programme of international

cooperation and exchange for many years.

ESAM continues to form partnerships and encourage exchanges of students and staff. The

school has developed special relationships with various higher education establishments.

Bilateral agreements exist between various European and non-European establishments: the

Fachhochschule Mannheim (Germany), Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main

(Germany), the University of Portsmouth (England), University College for the Creative Arts

(Farnham, England), the University of Ulster (Belfast, N. Ireland), Latvijas Masklas Akademia

(Riga, Latvia), Ecole Cantonale d’Arts du Valais (Switzerland), Université de Québec

(Chicoutimi, Canada), Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced

Learning/University of Toronto (Mississauga, Canada).

Students in the 3rd and 4th semesters (2nd year), and 5th and 6th semesters (4th year) of their studies

can spend time abroad. The student selects a destination and establishment corresponding to

his personal project under the guidance of the teaching staff and the person responsible for

international relations.

photos : Michaël Quemener

2.3) Introductory courses in artistic practice

ésam Caen offers a wide public, both adults and children, in their free time or at school, the

opportunity to learn about artistic practice or to develop their own work through various

classes and courses.

Introductory classes and courses

ésam Caen offers adults, and children aged six and over, around sixty weekly introductory

classes in artistic practice, and courses during school holidays. Designed to offer the public a

practical, experimental and varied approach, these lessons and courses aim to develop the

creativity and artistic creation of each participant. Over 1000 children, adolescents and adults

take part each year.

The activities and plastic arts service

The activities and plastic arts service visits primary schools in the Caen la Mer area at the

request of teachers and head-teachers and with the agreement of the education inspectorate.

These activities aim to develop young children’s curiosity in the plastic arts. In 2007/2008 the

service visited 1,800 pupils in 24 schools.

2.4) Cultural programme

The tools available to ésam in its new building (a 280m2 exhibition hall, a 250-seat auditorium,

and an 800m2 atrium) allow an ambitious cultural programme to be organised. This

programme promotes emerging artistic forms where the plastic arts join forces with other

disciplines such as dance, music, theatre, performance, etc. Students thus find themselves

immersed in a rich cultural environment which feeds their own creation and research. The

events are open to a wide spectrum of the public which is invited to discover contemporary

works inspired by the notions of pleasure and emotion, meeting and sharing. They allow ésam

to build partnerships with local cultural organisations in the fields of training, production and

dissemination.

Between October and December 2009 ésam will host the following:

- the exhibition ‘Voisins-voisines’ designed by the Arc en Rêve centre for architecture in

Bordeaux, which examines the concept of the individual dwelling. Alongside this exhibition the

Rencontres Caen Première will be held; this is a series of four public meetings with famous

contemporary architects and town-planners (including Jean Nouvel, Dominique Perrault,

Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal) organised by the city of Caen.

- three piano recitals; Jay Gottlieb has been given a free rein and has devised a programme

featuring contemporary music (pieces by George Crumb, Charles Koechlin, John Cage,

Charles Ives, György Ligeti, etc.)

- the ‘Koltès Voyage’ show presented by the Novothéâtre as part of the ‘Bernard-Marie Koltès :

Démons, Chimères et autres Métamorphoses’ colloquium organised in collaboration with IMEC,

the Café des Images, the Théâtre de Caen, the Université Paris VII, the Université de Caen Basse-

Normandie and the LASLAR.

- ‘Happy Child’, a form of stimulating and poetic musical theatre, and the latest work by the

Compagnie Nathalie Béasse which will be in residence at ESAM.

- an exhibition by the Franco-American artist Stephen Dean who was recently in residence at

the Villa Medici in Rome and who will offer visitors a surprising immersion into the world of

colour and movement.

- ‘Miss Very Wagner’, a strange performance during which the Swede Charlotte Engelkes will

portray the great Wagnerian heroines. This show is presented in collaboration with the Les

Boréales festival.

- ‘Gombrowiczshow’, the latest creation by the Compagnie du Zerep. This is a burlesque and

surprising show which could be called ‘Everything about Gombrowicz in an hour and a half’,

but which is above all a generous evocation of the different aspects of the personality of Witold

Gombrowicz.

- the 15th anniversary of the Transat Vidéo association will be celebrated with five days of

meetings, lectures, exhibitions, concerts, film and video shows.

For the full programme see www.esamcaen.fr.

2.5) The library

ésam’s library, housed over three floors (current materials room, reading room, stacks) is open

to the general public. It houses a reference collection and other resources on art, its history and

theories. The collection has 17,000 items: monographs, exhibition catalogues, 1200 videos (VHS &

DVD), 500 audio CDs and subscriptions to 38 newspapers and art magazines.

The catalogue can be consulted at http://catalogue-biblio-caen.caenlamer.fr

2.6) The restaurant

A restaurant, based on the principles of the ‘solidarity economy’, will soon open in the atrium

and will offer meals combining art and gastronomy using organic produce from local farms.

Practical information

Access:

école supérieure d’arts et médias de Caen : 17 cours Caffarelli, 14000 Caen, France

Tel.: +33 (0)2 14 37 25 00 – fax : +33 (0)2 14 37 25 01

www. esamcaen.fr

by train

ESAM is 700m from Caen railway station (SNCF)

by bus

Route 20 – the ‘Rond-point de l’Orne’ stop 300m from ésam

Routes 1, 3, 4, 6, 11 and 26 – the ‘Gare SNCF’ stop 700 metres from ésam

Routes 7 and 21 – the ‘Place du 36ème RI’ stop 750 metres from ésam

by tram

Trams A and B – the ‘Quai de Juillet’ stop 600 metres from ésam

by bicycle

the bicycle stand [Station V’éol] ‘Rond-point de l’Orne’ 300 metres from ésam

by car

Périphérique Nord [northern ring-road], Exit No. 2, ‘Caen ZA, Montalivet, SNCF’