“Written exchanges with…” puts asking questions at the heart of teaching practice in an art and design school. Indiana Collet-Barquero, lecturer in art and design history at ENSA Limoges, has been running the project since 2015 with successive groups of third-year students. Her aim has always been to foster a spirit of independent enquiry fuelled by contact with significant movers in the world of contemporary design.

Before conceiving their questions, the students must first acquire thorough knowledge of the designer’s creative output, researching aspects such as their subject’s education, apprenticeships, practical experiences, favoured techniques, aesthetic leanings or political stances. This leads to inevitable exchanges which are progressively refined by the students prior to finalising the publication in the school’s print department.

The whole process provides an active way of teaching design history based on practical experience, ideally suited to art and design students. The present work is an augmented digital version of the original paper edition.

Foreword