Inside the art school housing Provence’s most exciting summer exhibitions

Hidden away in the sun-drenched hills of the Luberon Valley, the medieval village of Lacoste is home to one of Europe’s most distinctive art campuses. Since 2002, SCAD Lacoste has turned this tranquil corner of Provence into a creative engine. Cobbled pathways are filled with students making their way from their village cottages, turned dorm rooms, state-of-the-art studios and ancient stone buildings housing exhibitions. Part of the Savannah College of Art and Design’s international network, the campus offers students an immersive experience in a landscape that has long drawn artists for its light and lore, formerly home to the likes of Pierre Cardin and even the Marquis de Sade.

This summer, SCAD Lacoste continues its tradition of bringing curation to its campus with two exhibitions that offer contrasting but complementary visions. First is Christian Dior: Jardins Rêvés, a collaboration with Christian Dior Couture celebrating the late designer’s love for the outdoors. Well documented, Dior’s lifelong affection for gardens has been seen in his childhood home in Granville, to the floral embroidery prints in his early collections and now at the centre of SCAD’s Lacoste campus.

The exhibition, curated by Hélène Starkman, traces those botanical motifs through more than 60 archival pieces spanning the house’s history, including rare perfume bottles, fashion sketches, and couture looks by Dior himself and his successors – Raf Simons, Maria Grazia Chiuri, and John Galliano among them. The display space, filled with thousands of handmade paper flowers, becomes an immersive garden bringing together each era of the brand. “I think that it’s all about the dream, and this is also why we called it Jardins Rêvés,” explains curator Hélène Starkman. “When Christian Dior created his house, it was just after the war, and he said that he wanted to make women more beautiful and happier. I think that we want to make people happy, and maybe just for 20 minutes forget about the rest”.

While the exhibition is open to the public, the centre of SCAD’s mission and shows remained focused on the students themselves. “On another level, I like to imagine sometimes that young people visiting the exhibition might realize that in the world that we live in today, you can become an embroiderer, because all of these things still exist and it’s a lot of like trades that are kind of disappearing,” explains Starkman, speaking on her hope for students experiencing the show. “I kind of like the idea that some people can realise that it’s actually a job that you can do. Some kids will see the exhibition and think, maybe I can be an embroiderer, or maybe I can make fabric flowers or paper flowers.”

Just down the hill, inside the newly opened Galerie Pfriem, Dutch art duo DRIFT are channelling a different kind of nature – one filtered through data and artificial intelligence. Their latest installation, Unfold, turns viewers’ heartbeats into a symphony of light and motion. After taking a biometric reading of the viewer on a special chair, a personalised flower begins to project onto the ceiling, made specifically from the data collected. DRIFT have long been interested in the unseen rhythms of the world around us – how light moves through a forest canopy or how flowers open and close. The use of technology in this project reflects a step further into how art and the growing fascination with AI can come together.

"[With] the whole discussion about technology, [it’s important to] remember that back in the day, surrealism exploded because of photography. Suddenly, people had a different way of capturing the day-to-day. How could artists at that time keep their practice alive? They had to get creative instead of making very exact paintings of the reality around them at that point. So it’s ever evolving,” explains Ralph Nauta of DRIFT. “Technology pushes us to think differently. It’s just a tool that we use, and we can use it for the better or the worse. It’s up to artists to show the world the best option in that regard. It’s an obligation of the artist to show the best outcome.”

While Dior’s vision leans into nostalgia and craftsmanship, and DRIFT’s into the future and sensation, both exhibitions speak to the same desire to slow down and enjoy nature’s offerings. In this village, SCAD Lacoste continues to blur the line between past and present, offering students and visitors alike the space to explore what comes next.

Head here to find out more information about visiting the exhibitions.