A programme designed by the entire scientific team at Iméra and coordinated by Constance Moréteau, who holds a PhD in contemporary art history and is the scientific coordinator and head of development for Iméra’s arts and sciences programme.
The Arts & Sciences: Indisciplined Knowledge programme is cross-disciplinary in the sense that each of the residencies that make up the programme is also linked to the theme of one of Iméra’s three other interdisciplinary programmes: ‘Mediterranean’, ‘Necessary Utopias’ and ‘Interdisciplinary Dialogues’.
The calls for proposals associated with this programme are aimed both at researchers working on art (understood as a subject of study) and at researchers working with art, as well as at artists engaged in research grounded in artistic practice.
This programme is run collectively by all members of the Iméra research team, who come from a variety of academic disciplines. The term ‘art’ here encompasses all existing forms of artistic expression, including the visual arts, literature, sound art, architecture, cinema (including documentaries), and the performing arts. At the same time, heritage can also be a subject of research and creative expression.
In line with the themes of Iméra’s three other programmes, ‘Arts and Sciences: Indisciplined Knowledge’ primarily supports the following approaches:
- The analysis and study of the impact of art in societies of the past, the present, and even from a forward-looking perspective.
- The creation or study of works that bring together artistic, academic and other forms of knowledge.
- Exploring the potential of artistic media as epistemological tools, whether, for example, drawing, dance, film editing, etc.
A forum for collective reflection on art research and art itself
From a methodological and institutional perspective, the ‘Arts and Sciences: Indisciplined Knowledge’ programme is situated within an academic, interdisciplinary and international context. It provides a space for collective reflection on research in art and on art itself, recognising art’s distinctive characteristics – including the fact that it is not a discipline in its own right – by, for example, combining diverse forms of knowledge from different fields and eras.
From a thematic perspective, being linked to another programme allows the research and questions raised by art to be enriched and explored through regular dialogue with other associated researchers, who may not necessarily be familiar with the art world but who are working within a shared thematic field or context. As an object of research, a mode of action, and a generator of critical thinking and knowledge, art thus takes its rightful place in these exchanges which, driven by a strong sense of curiosity, encourage everyone to articulate their systems of thought and expression. More broadly, we affirm the central role that imagination and creativity, as well as inventive practices, can play in academia and society, regardless of the subject under exploration. Indeed, these faculties characterise many interdisciplinary research practices, including those outside the field of art.
What sort of candidates are suited to this programme?
As for researchers working on and with art, they may come from any field within the humanities and social sciences, including: art theory, art history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, geography, etc. Furthermore, it is also open to the natural and life sciences, provided that the research project has a close link with art and/or artists.
As regards artists, Iméra can accommodate various stages of their projects , provided that these require sustained dialogue with researchers or expertise from academic disciplines during the conception of a work, a situation, a line of thought, a text (whether theoretical, poetic or of another nature). From the perspective of a work, a residency at Iméra is only meaningful either very early in the process or a little later during a work’s development phase, but must take place prior to production. Iméra does not provide production facilities, but rather an unequipped studio, possibly shared with another artist-in-residence, allowing for a variety of configurations of knowledge, which may also be spatialised and materialised in different formats. This can also take the form of private or semi-public viewings to share moments of research and initial outcomes. The development phase is understood as a phase of constructive back-and-forth between ‘formal’ experiments (written, visual, sound, editing, etc.) and theoretical research, whilst remaining informed by the sensory and the experience of artistic practice as practice-based research.
Like a pause in the liberal economy of artistic production, this programme allows for human and scholarly encounters to take place without pressure, for questions to serve as sources of fruitful developments, and for the shift of artistic conventions into the academic world to open up new fields of action and engagement, as well as new methodological and thematic avenues.
Finally, since 2024, this programme has been hosting the interdisciplinary research-creation workshop ‘Sensitive Transitions’, which explores the sensory dimensions of the changing world of labour
Contact: Constance Moréteau, scientific coordinator at Iméra and head of development for the arts and sciences programme.
Workshop series as part of Iméra’s ‘Arts & Sciences: Indisciplined Knowledge’ programme
