Polytechnique module "Cultural mediation and graffiti".

Within the licence Histoire Archéologie Patrimoine Environnement (HARPE) of the Institut Sociétés et Humanités, the Polytechnic Module "Médiation culturelle et graffiti" enabled, during the academic year 2025-2026, around fifty students to combine research, creativity and cultural mediation around the graffiti of Cambrai's citadel.

Supported by Diane Ducamp and Yannick Prangère, this MP is fully in line with the professionalizing pedagogy developed by the Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France. Through this original project, the students designed cultural events for school audiences, while discovering a singular local heritage: the underground galleries and historic graffiti of Cambrai's citadel.

Throughout the year, four Cambrai classes (from CM2 to lycée) were welcomed to test the mediation devices imagined by the students. A hands-on experience that also gave the young visitors a first glimpse of UPHF's educational offering at the Centre Universitaire La Forêt.

The module brought together 25 students per semester from a variety of courses: HARPE, LLCER English, Life Sciences, Digital Arts, Plastic Arts, Management and History-Geography. All were encouraged to develop essential cross-disciplinary skills: teamwork, creation of teaching aids, public speaking, project management and appropriation of a historical heritage.

The students were thus led to:

• discover and appropriate their playground - graffiti and the citadel;
• be actors in their proposal;
• be imaginative;
• create written supports;
• meet educational objectives;
• meet and express themselves in front of a real audience, while learning to master their apprehension;
• building a collective project;
• evaluate their own experience.

The sessions, split between the Cambrai campus and the citadel's underground passages, encouraged an immersive approach that was particularly appreciated by the students, who were motivated as much by the heritage theme as by the project's territorial roots.

The second semester was also marked by the participation of two artists associated with the CLEA (Contrat Local d'Éducation Artistique et Culturelle) of the Communauté d'agglomération de Cambrai, supported by the Direction régionale des affaires culturelles (DRAC) Hauts-de-France: Shuya Zhu (visual artist and performer) and Audrey Alonso from the POULP collective (space designer).
These encounters enriched the students' thinking and opened up new artistic and scenographic perspectives. These encounters enriched the students' thinking and opened up new artistic and scenographic perspectives.

By their involvement, creativity and attendance, the students demonstrated the relevance of this module combining field experimentation, cultural mediation and professional posture. It's a dynamic that the project leaders hope to continue next year, to support a new class of students in this educational and human adventure.