Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains is a training institution and an establishment of artistic, audiovisual and digital production and distribution. The pedagogical program focuses on full-scale projects deploying professional technical means and tools, and benefitting from facilitators of the highest quality. The students and guest artist-cum-teachers produce their works through ongoing dialog. This hands-on teaching strategy is accompanied by a series of lectures on theoretical, historical, and technical matters presented by specialists.

Le Fresnoy – Studio national offers its 48 students (24 by intake for a two-year course) a barrier-free approach to audiovisual and multimedia artistic disciplines in a theoretical, historical, and technical continuum, from photography through video and cinema to multimedia and the digital arts. Every year the permanent team of teaching coordinators and facilitators invites “artist-teachers”, including some of the foremost figures in art on both the national and international scenes: Tsaï Ming-Liang, Bruno Dumont, André S. Labarthe, Chantal Akerman, Mathieu Amalric, João Pedro Rodrigues, Joan Fontcuberta, Grégory Chatonsky, Charles Sandison, Atau Tanaka, Pascal Convert, Ryoji Ikeda, Christian Rizzo, Joana Hadjithomas et Khalil Joreige, Scanner/Robin Rimbaud, Manon de Boer, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Edwin van der Heide, Cyril Teste, Ramy Fischler, Robert Henke, Arnaud Petit, Patrick Jouin, Wang Bing, Béla Tarr…

Le Fresnoy – Studio national also functions as an exhibition space and screening venue. Its vast halls host two exhibitions a year, thematic and monographic, in particular Panorama, which presents all of Le Fresnoy’s productions each autumn with more than fifty works: movies, videos, installations, performances or digital works. Two movie theaters show art-house and experimental work; there are also special screenings. In addition Le Fresnoy, houses the only branch of the Cinémathèque Française film library outside Paris.