Specialty: Visual Arts
Project: thePlasticCell, cellular plasticity and dynamics: crossed perspectives from art and science. – Application deadline: 6 May 2026
– Expected PhD start: October 2026
– Funding: Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès
– Contract type: 3-year fixed-term contract (Université Toulouse 2 Jean-Jaurès), funded through the Occitanie regional TIRIS program – Transition and interdisciplinarity, Toulouse initiative for Research’s Impact on Society, winner of the « ExcellencES » call of the French Future Investment Program (2022).
– PhD co-supervision: Didier CHRISTOPHE (PRCE HDR, LLA-CRÉATIS, ENSFEA, Université de Toulouse), Edwige ARMAND (MCF, LLA-CRÉATIS and LISAA, Université Gustave-Eiffel Paris-Est-Sup) and Renaud POINCLOUX (IR, IPBS, CNRS).
– Doctoral school: ALLPH@ (Arts, Literature, Languages, Philosophy, Communication)
https://allpha.univ-tlse2.fr/
– Research unit: LLA-CRÉATIS (Letters, Language and Arts – Creation, Research, Emergence in Arts, Texts, Images, Performances).
– Main workplaces: IPBS research unit (Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology, Université Toulouse Paul-Sabatier) and LLA-CRÉATIS (Université Toulouse Jean-Jaurès).
– Project in collaboration with Laurent Malaquin and Elise Rigot (LAAS-CNRS and LLA-CRÉATIS).
Offer details:
Keywords: art-science, research-creation, microplastics, phagocytosis, plasticity, cell biology, interdisciplinarity
1- Scientific description and context of the « thePlasticCell » project:
In an age when plastics are everywhere, microplastics, microscopic particles produced by the fragmentation of plastic materials, are present in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. Residues of plastic pollution become part of our bodies and of the living organisms around us: this invisible pollution goes beyond simple contamination of our ecosystem. It becomes intimately integrated into biological tissues, down to cellular microenvironments, and is associated with risks for the environment and for human and animal health. Macrophages, immune cells that are essential for surveillance and elimination of foreign agents, actively phagocytose these plastic particles.
This interaction raises fundamental questions about how the immune system perceives and responds to non-biological elements. This porosity between the living and the non-living opens new perspectives on our relationship with matter and challenges our very definition of the human body in a world where the boundary between the natural and the cultural no longer exists.
Within an art-science framework, we propose to host two PhD candidates in parallel, one in art/design and one in science, connecting Université Jean-Jaurès (LLA-CRÉATIS), LAAS and IPBS.
This PhD offer concerns the candidate in visual arts.
How do our immune cells recognize and interact with microplastics? How can we make visible and express what happens in the interaction between microplastics, our body and our environment? How does this plastic entity, at the microscale, change the way we perceive our bodies and our environment?
Through an Art/Science approach, this funded PhD aims to foster and deepen understanding of the mechanisms of immune-cell interactions from both cultural and biological perspectives. While biology makes it possible to understand the phenomenon at the cellular level, art makes it possible to grasp a form of « sensitive knowledge » through the experience of an artwork.
Part of the project will be dedicated to the co-creation of an artistic installation that provides access to the knowledge generated around the process of phagocytosis, including through the senses (sight, hearing, touch, etc.) and opening onto different regimes of rationality.
The two PhD candidates will work together on the Toulouse campus between the LAAS-CNRS, IPBS-CNRS and LLA-CRÉATIS laboratories at Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, in order to produce an artistic installation for a public exhibition that addresses the interaction between our bodies, our environment and microplastics.
2- Research challenges:
For the PhD candidate in arts, the challenge will be to explore the incorporation of microplastics by various organisms and their reactions. The work will involve developing plastic or design objects inspired by biological research, offering a new representation of this phenomenon between biology and society. By gaining access to various scientific techniques (microfabrication, cell manipulation, etc.), the candidate will propose an alternative and conceptual view of this mechanism. The subject is situated within debates on the Anthropocene and the notion of the cyborg, questioning the symbiosis between artifacts and organisms. The research will aim to produce an aesthetic as a form of knowledge, articulating science and societal engagement, with fieldwork in science to analyze phagocytosis.
The shared challenge for the two PhD candidates will be to develop an aesthetic perspective together and to create boundary objects between art and science. These may take various forms, from aestheticized images to micro-objects or artistic devices that materialize a way of thinking with the phenomenon of microplastic incorporation and can raise awareness among a broader audience. Their exchanges will foster invention by making knowledge and imaginaries compatible. The two candidates’ cultures will enable creativity and renewed ways of thinking and seeing, which will infuse their respective research.
Through this art-science dynamic, the aim is to highlight the functioning of our immune system and to create and exhibit innovative forms evoking current research. This PhD project is based both on making microfabrication and microscopy techniques available to an artist-researcher, and on the co-construction of a critical view of these techniques and of the symbiotic and hybrid links to the artificial.
3- PhD project conditions, objectives and methodological elements:
The recruited student will also receive training in LAAS laboratory techniques, providing the scientific knowledge needed to build a project at the intersection of artistic practice and theory.
Each PhD candidate will have their own project, but the two theses will run in parallel and the candidates will be able to interact daily, as they will be integrated into the same laboratories. Both will be trained, in part, in common experimental approaches (microfabrication, microscopy), which they will use either to address the scientific questions of the project or for artistic creation. The PhD candidate in arts will be integrated into the LAAS and IPBS research teams and trained in scientific methods. The PhD candidate in science will participate in the creation of an artistic installation enabling the public to understand the porosity of our bodies to microplastics (our own body, that of animals, the sea and the earth).
The first objective of the art/design PhD will be to produce a critical state of the art on epistemological frameworks and key notions such as artifact-natural, Anthropocene, symbiosis, cyborg and global health. Existing types of rationality will be questioned using two source materials: phagocytosis and its role in managing microplastics, and the response of our immune systems to the integration of microplastics, the effects on our health and the artistic approach. A methodology based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews will be used to grasp both societal and epistemological issues related to phagocytosis and microplastics. These studies will be the starting point for an artistic approach linking science and society, society and art, and art and science.
The second objective will be to experiment, at the intersection of arts and sciences, with methodologies, protocols, tools and ways of questioning the living and its relationship with the artificial. The challenge will be to experiment, through the confrontation and tension between arts and sciences, with other methodologies and techniques by integrating sensoriality and other perceptual regimes in order to develop new relationships to the phenomenon of phagocytosis and microplastics. New media such as 3D printing or virtual reality may develop new perceptions of this biological phenomenon. Hybrid methodologies will be created by integrating other modes of relation to the living and the artificial into an artistic approach that takes situated knowledge into account (affects, subjectivity, embodiment). This will make it possible to mobilize and invest know-how and dynamics from both fields, and to prototype and produce mixed objects arising from this interdisciplinary crossing.
Finally, the last objective will be to experiment with research-creation at the intersection of the artistic and the scientific. This work will be promoted through article publications and presentations at conferences and study days. An art-science exhibition will communicate the scientific and artistic approaches and contribute to the dissemination of knowledge.
The recruited students will jointly run workshops around their shared work for students in art and design at the Institut Supérieur des Arts et du Design de Toulouse (isdaT) and at the Biology, Health and Biotechnology doctoral school.
Desired profile:
– Validated Master’s 2 degree in Arts (programs in Visual Arts and Art Sciences, Research and Creation in Visual Arts, Contemporary Creation and New Technologies, Practices and Research in Visual and Plastic Arts, Design, or Artist-in-Residence/Intervention), or a Master’s 2 in Design, and/or a Master’s 2 in Molecular Biology with documented personal artistic practice.
– Experience in designing and disseminating artistic creation,
– Interest in life sciences,
– Basic knowledge of laboratory research practices,
– Knowledge of socio-anthropological inquiry and field observation,
– Ability to work in a team.
– Required qualities: creativity, openness, organization, ability to synthesize and write.
Application process:
Interested candidates may send their CV + portfolio of personal artistic productions + cover letter + Master’s 2 grades and thesis + recommendation letter before Wednesday 6 May 2026 at midnight to: Didier Christophe <[email protected]>
Edwige Armand <[email protected]>
Renaud Poincloux <[email protected]>
Shortlisted candidates will be invited to submit a preliminary project before an interview scheduled for May 2026.
Partner laboratory websites: https://lla-creatis.univ-tlse2.fr/
https://www.ipbs.fr/phagocytearchitecture-and-dynamics/
https://www.laas.fr/fr/
