Research and Creativity

Today, research practices in the arts are undergoing a profound transformation. Driven by a broad range of actors, national institutions, independent artistic collectives, hybrid cultural spaces, labels, and cultural operators, these practices are moving beyond the sole production of artistic works to investigate new aesthetic, technical, and social domains, while intersecting with research in the humanities and social sciences.

The Maison Française d’Oxford fully aligns itself with this trajectory. Our ambition is to contribute to the establishment of a genuinely international community of scholars in theatre, dance, music, photography, cinema, and related arts, sharing conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and practices.

The MFO will particularly foreground projects that intersect creative work and innovation — whether technological, scientific, or social — and that position audiences at the centre of their processes.

Specifically, our mission consists in:

· supporting doctoral candidates pursuing academic research related to the performing arts, by fostering their inquiries and exploratory work;

· contributing to international dialogue on contemporary issues in artistic research by collaborating with various centres of excellence in France (such as the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, the SACRe programme at PSL, etc.);

· strengthening the relationship between research and artistic creation, notably through the creative residency established with the support of the Scientific and Technological Service of the French Embassy in the United Kingdom.

By consolidating these connections between artists, researchers, and institutions, the Maison Française d’Oxford seeks to contribute to the invention of the future forms of artistic creation and research.