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Cultural Partnerships & Research Resources

Paris College of Art has relationships with many of the greatest cultural institutions in and around Paris through which our students have access to extraordinary library resources, studio facilities, internships, and research opportunities.

Participating in the PCA and Terra Foundation collaboration was a great opportunity to work with French students and gain experience doing artistic academic research. As an artist, it was interesting to work with students with an art-academic background. The Terra Foundation library itself is a rich collection of artistic references that I wish I knew of sooner. Their books aided me in both this collaboration and my thesis research.”
Kirby Mealer, MFA in Transdisciplinary New Media, Class of ’23

Terra Foundation for American Art

The Terra Foundation Library offers a research facility devoted exclusively to the visual arts of the United States from the eighteenth century to 1980, with particular emphasis on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Holdings consist of nearly 9,500 books and catalogues, including rare materials and digital resources.

Terra Foundation for American Art

Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs

This research library dedicated to the decorative and applied arts boasts an impressive collection of 120,000 publications – including exhibition and sale catalogues, books, periodicals, 19th-century Japanese books and scrolls, photographs, and other printed records.

Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs

The American Library of Paris

The American Library of Paris that houses a collection of more than 120,000 books, CD-ROM indexes, a periodicals collection of 500 titles (some of which date back to the 19th century) and two digital full-text and bibliographic databases offer access to more than 2,300 periodicals including a wide range of arts and humanities journals.

The American Library of Paris

La Gaîté Lyrique

La Gaîté Lyrique is a vibrant center for digital culture and arts offering an eclectic program of music, art, film, workshops, conferences, and performances, as well as a resource center, a videogame center, a media lab and a streaming platform. PCA students can access this resource and use its library holdings including a collection of books on digital culture, 150 periodicals specializing in digital design, catalogues, comic books and graphic novels. Faculty also have access to the facilities to hold classes on the premises.

La Gaîté Lyrique

La Réserve des Arts

La Réserve des Arts, a non-profit organization that promotes sustainability and artistic innovation through re-use of waste materials, collects re-usable materials from companies and industries within the Paris region and provides these low-cost materials to art-making organizations. PCA partners with La Réserve des Arts to encourage students to work in a sustainable manner and to promote the mission of this important organization whose motto is “Ecological sustainability is a cultural revolution!”

La Réserve des Arts

Terra Foundation for American Art

Every semester, the Liberal Studies & Art History Department selects outstanding PCA undergraduate students across departments and offers them the opportunity to take part in a unique high-level research program on a specific topic related to American Art, based on the Collection of the Terra Foundation.

The program provides the opportunity to work closely with the Terra Library’s wonderful collection of books and have a first major experience within the academic research world. The final workshop and presentation are also an occasion to compare study and research methodologies with peers from French universities in an international and interdisciplinary context.

Terra Foundation for American Art

Bibliothèque Kandinsky

The collections of this specialized, international, heritage-oriented library affiliated with the Centre Pompidou are intended for research and exhibition purposes. They are exclusively devoted to 20th and 21st century works of art, design, architecture, photography, film, video and new media. Originally reserved for museum curators, the library exceptionally allows associated researchers and students enrolled at PCA to access the collections, under the academic supervision of PCA instructors. Paris College of Art and the Bibliothèque Kandinsky have created a joint framework which provides internship opportunities for students with strong academic merit and demonstrating proficiency in French.

Bibliothèque Kandinsky

MakeSense

MakeSense is an international organization bringing together 2,000 social entrepreneurs with 30,000 volunteers from over 100 cities in 70 countries. By putting together volunteers’ skills and ideas, MakeSense’s aim is to help social entrepreneurs create and develop their businesses and solve the most pressing issues faced by society. Paris College of Art joins forces with MakeSense in our one-year Master’s program (MA) in Design for Social Impact that equips citizen designers with the critical thinking (ethics, research methods), practical (design thinking, entrepreneurship, prototyping), and soft (governance, leadership, networking) skills to successfully develop and lead design projects that will bring positive societal changes.

MakeSense

Learning Planet Institute

The Learning Planet Institute explores new ways of learning, teaching, conducting research and mobilizing collective intelligence in life, learning and digital sciences. Situated at the crossroads of research and education, CRI advocates for innovative pedagogy that puts the student at the heart of their own learning experience through projects, research and societal challenges. PCA’s partnership with CRI offers unique opportunities for interdisciplinary research to our Design for Social Impact and Transdisciplinary New Media students.

Learning Planet Institute

Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles

The mission of the Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles (CRCV) is to conduct and support research, in particular concerning the 17th and 18th centuries, on the court of Versailles and other European seats of power. The collaboration between the CRCV and PCA allows students to access the research tools of the CRCV and provides guidance and support for their research. PCA students are eligible to apply for a two-month summer internship at the CRCV.

Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles

Institut Suédois

The Institut Suédois promotes Swedish culture and Franco-Swedish relations through multi-disciplinary exhibits and events. Its aim is to serve as a forum for intercultural exchange that fosters openness and mutual understanding. Through a partnership with the Institute, PCA Interior Design students collaborated with students from Beckmans College of Art and Design (Stockholm) to create a new interior design for one of the Institute’s residences, unveiled as part of Paris Design Week.

Institut Suédois