Every year since 2010, the Foundation has invited artists to explore exceptional skills and practices through residencies at the Hermès workshops. Offering a veritable carte blanche to creativity, the Artists’ Residencies programme enables participants to produce original works with exceptional materials as they work alongside Hermès artisans in an environment that encourages unusual and unique artistic experiments.

The Fondation d’entreprise Hermès has five exhibition spaces worldwide. Situated in Europe and Asia and dedicated to contemporary art, these sites often present works on show for the first time; they aim to reach the broadest possible audience thanks to a policy of free admission. Each space is overseen by a specialist curator, who develops a unique programme that draws upon the local scene as well as featuring French and international artists.

A collaboration with the Aperture Foundation in New York City. United in artistic excellence and the desire to accompany emerging artistic gestures. Immersion is a programme dedicated to photography and built around artists’ residencies held in France and the USA, in addition to an exhibition of the resulting works, and the publication of a book.

Fostering a harmonious relationship between humans and ecosystems. Taking inspiration from populations who are as one with fragile ecosystems, who call upon ancient practical skills to make use of raw materials and resources. And focusing the Foundation’s activities on making more information and training available on sustainable practices for growing crops, breeding livestock and developing the built environment.

In 2016, the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès launched a new programme devised for schools. Entitled Manufacto, the Skills Factory, the programme looks to introduce young students to craft skills and materials.

Through H³, Hermès staff bring public-interest organisations with which they are personally involved to the attention of the Foundation. Projects from all around the world are welcomed, responding to the criteria of education and training, promoting artisan trades, or the preservation of biodiversity. Selected projects are supported and accompanied over a two-year period.

The Skills Academy is a programme organised by the Foundation dedicated to the transmission of craft skills and practices, and to opening them up to other fields, including design and engineering. Every two years, the Academy brings together a diverse range of professionals around a transdisciplinary theme.

In 2018, the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès inaugurates Artistes dans la Cité, its second programme dedicated to the performing arts. Alongside the accompaniment of artists provided by the New Settings programme, Artistes dans la Cité features a series of initiatives that aim to promote transmission, some of which have already been supported by the Foundation for a number of years. These initiatives, many of which are driven by artists themselves, share a common goal of promoting citizens’ voices through generous projects that are open to society as a whole.