Since its opening in 1985, the Musée d’art contemporain de la Haute-Vienne has been committed to its work aimed at young people.
Partner to the French national education services, the museum offers a range of activities that is linked to school curricula. This is particularly the case for Art history, which requires pupils to “Find their way around a museum, art location or heritage site.” and the pupils’ Artistic and Cultural Education Studies (PEAC), which aim to promote equal access to art for all students through the acquisition of a personal artistic culture.
The museum offers teachers the opportunity to draw on the resources of a collection made up of more than 300 works by international artists, some of whom are today representative of recognised art movements (Land art, arte povera, conceptual art, relational aesthetics, performance, video art...).
In the Raoul Hausmann resource library teachers will find visual and sound-based works of art and archives relating to the Dada movement, architecture and concrete poetry.
Temporary exhibitions are also the subject of new itineraries and themed workshops developed by the museum’s outreach department. Details on these workshops can be found in the museum’s educational programme.
The outreach department is available to meet with teachers and to work together to create a programme of visits or activities based on the collection’s themes, how a museum operates or the history of its architecture. Visits and workshops are adapted to suit the ages of participants (from pre-school to tertiary college, from university level to art school) and school teachers and specialist teachers accompany groups throughout. The exhibitions and works of art from our era are studied from a variety of angles, ranging from practical experimentation to encouraging awareness or an approach that is based on art history, philosophy, ecology...
Specific visits are reserved for teachers and those accompanying school groups at the beginning of each exhibition so that they can prepare for their visit. Please note that the museum works in collaboration with French national education services as a training partner.
Age-specific services:
Primary schools
These visits, which take place in a relaxed, fun manner in the spacious educational area and outside, are preceded or followed by a workshop. They establish a way of informing our perception, which in turn impacts seeing and doing.
These workshop visits focus on a theme taken from the exhibition and on a few selected works.
The following workshop visits are on permanent offer:
Raoul Hausmann, , researcher, inventor, composer
Through the works of Raoul Hausmann we learn that art can be created with images that have been cut up, ripped and glued as well as with written, printed or even sung letters... In the workshop pupils explore the possibility of inventing images that are intended for both the eyes and the ears.
Art and nature, Richard Long and Giuseppe Penone
The presence of works by Richard Long and Guiseppe Penone makes it possible to question the relationship between art and nature. This visit will enable the youngest pupils to look at nature around them in a different way and for older pupils to learn about the Land art and Arte Povera movements. The visit can be combined with a workshop outside.
Secondary school / Tertiary college
For secondary school classes, we have a preference for autonomous work carried out in small groups focussing on a few works and based on simple instructions. As a follow-up to this work, each group shares their comments, analysis and questions with the rest of the class. This approach leads to discussion, on the basis of which it becomes possible to gain an understanding of the art work and to involve pupils directly in the process of analysing the work.
For tertiary college or sixth form, the exhibition visit is an opportunity to explore questions of an aesthetic and philosophical nature relating to art and contemporary art in particular: relationship to reality, notions of beauty, skill and expertise, the role of the artist and art itself in society etc.
University / Art school
Find out more about the documentation centre.
Reservations & information
To organise your visit or to request information, you can contact our education department:
- By phone: 05 55 03 77 77
- By mail using the contact form below: