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Draft:SEAP

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SPEAP – Programme of Experimentation in Arts and Politics
Sciences Po École des Arts Politiques
AbbreviationSPEAP
Formation2010
FoundersBruno Latour; Valérie Pihet
Dissolved2023
TypePostgraduate programme / research laboratory
HeadquartersParis, France
Parent organization
Sciences Po

SPEAP – Programme of Experimentation in Arts and Politics (often shortened to SPEAP, and also referred to as Sciences Po École des Arts Politiques) was a postgraduate, project-based experimental programme founded at Sciences Po (Paris) in 2010. It was initiated by Bruno Latour and Valérie Pihet together with a broader pedagogical committee of artists, philosophers, designers, anthropologists and social scientists.[1][2] The programme ran until 2023.[3]

SPEAP described itself as a "programme of experimentation in arts and politics". Its stated goal was to bring together practitioners from the arts, humanities, social sciences, design, law, architecture, activism and public policy to work on concrete, situated situations, re-formulating how public issues are composed, perceived and discussed rather than focusing solely on theoretical or studio-based problems.[1] The aim was to rethink how artistic practice, scientific inquiry and political engagement could be articulated together in the present.[1]

History

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SPEAP was launched in 2010 at Sciences Po. It emerged from work led by Bruno Latour and collaborators on public inquiry, representation and ecological politics, including earlier exhibition-based projects such as Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy (2005).[1] From the outset, SPEAP was not only the project of Latour and Pihet: it was developed collectively with a core group of contributors (including philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, artists and curators) who helped define the programme’s transdisciplinary structure and methods.[1][2]

Between 2010 and 2014, the programme was co-directed by Bruno Latour and Valérie Pihet.[1] From 2014 to 2023, scientific direction passed to Frédérique Aït Touati, who expanded and stabilised the teaching network.[4][2]

Over these periods, the pedagogical committee included researchers, artists, filmmakers, designers and theorists connected to Sciences Po, to Latour’s work on ecology and representation, and to networks around contemporary art, documentary practices and territorial inquiry.[2] SPEAP became attached to Sciences Po’s Maison des Arts et de la Création (House of Arts and Creation), which positioned artistic practice and experimental representation as part of the institution’s public mission, and the programme closed in 2023 after thirteen years.[3]

Pedagogical approach

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SPEAP’s pedagogy centred on collective inquiry rather than on individual studio work or conventional academic coursework.[1] Each cohort brought together around 15–20 participants, often mid-career professionals rather than traditional students. Participants typically came from diverse backgrounds such as visual arts, filmmaking, theatre, choreography, graphic and spatial design, architecture, urban studies, anthropology, sociology, law, journalism, activism, and public administration.[1][4]

Teaching was based on investigation and production. Participants were expected to:

  • enter a real situation (territory, conflict, controversy, institution);
  • identify actors, stakes, attachments, forms of knowledge and forms of vulnerability involved;
  • "re-describe" the problem in ways that make it perceptible and discussable;
  • design devices that allow this problem to be staged publicly.[1]

These devices could take the form of spatial installations, scripts for assemblies, films, maps, negotiated protocols, performances, speculative scenarios, public hearings, or other formats intended to make an issue visible, arguable and shareable.[1][4]

The core role of "commandes" (commission)

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A central feature of SPEAP was the commande spécifique ("specific commission"). Each year, the group worked on one or more commissions issued by an external partner such as a municipality, a ministry, a cultural institution, a public agency, an NGO, a museum, a research lab or a company.[5] These partners did not ask for a conventional consulting report or a classic artwork. Instead, they exposed a situation or problem (for example land use, climate adaptation, toxic exposure, institutional legitimacy or public controversy) and asked SPEAP to help make this situation intelligible, negotiable and debatable.[5][4]

The work was therefore less "apply a method" than "compose a response" to that unique situation. The response could involve reframing the question, inventing new representational formats, and creating conditions for public discussion and negotiation.[4]

Partners and commission contexts include[5]: ANDRA; Ateliers Médicis; CANOPÉEA (Collectif pour des Assises nationales ouvertes sur les pratiques artistiques et pédagogiques); CNES; CNNum; Culture et biodiversité dans le massif Pyrénées; DingDingDong (Institut de coproduction de savoir sur la maladie de Huntington); École des Actes à Aubervilliers; Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain; Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso; Hôpital Bichat / Beaujon / Saint-Ouen Grand Paris Nord; Hôtel/Orthopédie clinique; Hôpital (e-petition service of the City of Paris); IDDRI – “les Brésils possibles” on the route to COP15 Biodiversité; La Cuisine (centre d’art à Nègrepelisse); Les biffins de Belleville (informal market in Belleville, Paris); Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers; Musée Nicéphore-Niépce; Musée Zoologique de Strasbourg; Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature; Navire Avenir (association PÉROU – migrant-assistance ship); Nansen Initiative; Orthopédie chirurgie clinic; Parc naturel régional du Vexin français; PEROU / Pôle d’Exploration des Ressources Urbaines; Pôle d’Exploration des Ressources Urbaines; Service de e-petition de the City of Paris; Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers; Université Foraine (Rennes); Université Foraine (Clermont-Ferrand); Ville d’Épinay; Villa Médicis à Clichy-Montfermeil; WARM (War, Art, Reporting, Memories); the City of Paris; collaborations with Harvard University and other universities; La Cuisine; and the Maison des Arts et de la Création / Sciences Po.

In many cases, the commission required participants to invent public formats capable of holding together scientific expertise, situated knowledge, political stakes and aesthetic form.[1][4]

Compositionist orientation

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SPEAP explicitly aligned itself with what Bruno Latour called a "compositionist" approach, first articulated in his Compositionist Manifesto (2010) and in Pour une école des arts politiques (2011).[6] In this view, "political arts" are the practices through which one attempts to compose a common world. Latour argued that "compositionism takes up the task of building rather than deconstructing", and that for each concrete issue "nothing can be transported as is from one situation to another; everything must be adjusted, specified, described — above all, described".[6]

In SPEAP, this became a working method: rather than applying a fixed theory or procedure, participants were asked to assemble heterogeneous actors, materials, images, narratives and evidentiary traces in order to make an issue exist publicly.[1] This approach was later developed in the book Puissances de l’enquête. Ce que les enquêtes font aux territoires, aux savoirs et à la démocratie (Les Liens qui Libèrent, 2022), edited by Bruno Latour and Frédérique Aït Touati, which argues for inquiry (enquête) as a transformative practice that can reshape territories, redistribute authority and generate new political forums.[7]

Pedagogical committee

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Over its thirteen years, SPEAP maintained an evolving pedagogical committee. Beyond the two named founders, the committee included philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, artists, filmmakers, designers, dramaturges and curators. The committee both taught and supervised the annual commissions.[2]

Key figures who took part in the programme’s steering, teaching and mentoring include:

Guest contributors and interlocutors

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SPEAP regularly invited external contributors as lecturers and as interlocutors for specific commissions. These guests came from contemporary art, philosophy, anthropology, science studies, cinema, literature and media theory.[2]

Arts and visual culture: Christian Boltanski; Romain Bigé; Olivier Cadiot; Pierre Charbonnier; Gilles Clément; Olafur Eliasson; Thierry Fournier; Thomas Hirschhorn; Pierre Huyghe; Armin Linke; Jean-Luc Moulène; Philippe Quesne; Philippe Rahm; Milo Rau; Tino Sehgal; Xavier Veilhan.

Philosophy and political theory: Ludivine Bantigny; Barbara Cassin; Yves Citton; Didier Debaise; Philippe Descola; Vinciane Despret; Émilie Hache; Antoine Hennion; François Jullien; Bruno Karsenti; Catherine Malabou; Noortje Marres; Bastien Morizot; Isabelle Stengers; Sébastien Thiéry; Anna Tsing; Eduardo Viveiros de Castro; Joëlle Zask.

Science studies and anthropology: Stefan Aykut; Lorraine Daston; Donna Haraway; Peter Galison; Eduardo Kohn; Denis Laborde; Pierre Lascoumes; Fabian Muniesa; Simon Schaffer; Richard Sennett; Jacques Tassin; Anne-Christine Taylor; Stéphane Van Damme.

Cinema, performance and literature: Olivier Assayas; Nicolas Carrier; Nicolas Philibert; Verena Paravel; Richard Powers; Sarah Vanhee; Éric Vuillard; Richard Rogers; Lionel Ruffel; Philippe Mangeot; Matmos (Andrew Daniel & Martin Schmidt).

Curatorial and institutional practice: Laurence Bertrand-Dorléac; Mélanie Bouteloup; Hans Ulrich Obrist; Erika Fattori; Patricia Falguières; Margit Rosen; Caroline Naphegyi; Marie Ouazzani.

Interdisciplinary and other notable contributors: Joana Hadjithomas; Khalil Joreige; Renaud Herbin; Tim Ingold; Élie During; Arnaud Esquerre; Stefano Savona; DingDingDong (Émilie Hermant & Valérie Pihet).

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Pihet, Valérie (2016). "SPEAP – Programme of Experimentation in Arts and Politics". MaHKUscript: Journal of Fine Art Research. 1 (1). doi:10.5334/mjfar.8.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Équipe". SPEAP École des Arts Politiques. 20 February 2024. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
  3. ^ a b "Sciences Po École des Arts Politiques". Maison des Arts et de la Création, Sciences Po. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d e f "Reassembling Art Pedagogy: Pragmatism, Inquiry, and Climate Change at Sciences Po Experimentation in Arts and Politics". e-flux Education. 27 February 2015. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
  5. ^ a b c "Commandes". SPEAP École des Arts Politiques. 20 February 2024. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
  6. ^ a b Latour, Bruno (2011). "Les arts politiques: Pour une école des arts politiques?" (PDF). Réseau Culture 21. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
  7. ^ Latour, Bruno; Aït Touati, Frédérique, eds. (2022). Puissances de l'enquête: Ce que les enquêtes font aux territoires, aux savoirs et à la démocratie. Les Liens qui Libèrent. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
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Category:Sciences Po Category:Political art Category:Educational institutions established in 2010 Category:2010 establishments in France Category:2023 disestablishments in France

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