28/06/2024 News

“High-school students discover the biggest museum in France”: TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation backs the program for heritage awareness, conservation and transmission created by the Sauvegarde de l’art français, as from September 2024.

TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation is pleased to announce its partnership with the Sauvegarde de l’art français, a one-hundred-year-old foundation devoted to protecting French cultural heritage. Recognized as being in the public interest, since 1921 the Sauvegarde de l’art français has been working to promote and restore heritage in France.

TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation has decided to support this unique heritage awareness, conservation and transmission program “High-school students discover the biggest museum in France”, for three years. For the first time, high-school students will be associated with the restoration of artwork and local heritage.

This instructive program is intended for 10^th and 11^th grade students, from high-schools located in rural or priority education areas (REP/REP+)¹.

There are many objectives, including raising young people’s awareness to the importance of safeguarding French heritage by helping them reconnect with their regions, and giving them a sense of responsibility by stimulating their citizenship engagement.

“High-school students discover the biggest museum in France” federates various educational, cultural and public stakeholders: educational establishments, regional curators, local artists and craftspeople, and the communities concerned. The program has two facets:

Discovering heritage: at project kick-off, the students are symbolically entrusted with a €10,000 euro grant to restore a work of art. Throughout the academic year, they find out about five or six pieces of artwork or objects, close to where they live and to their school. The students then carry out research and analysis work with the help of their teachers, to deepen their understanding of the artwork and the challenges involved in restoring it. Alongside that, heritage curators and restorers come to the schools to speak to the students about their work and explain the challenges involved in protecting heritage.
Artistic and restoration facet: The Sauvegarde de l’art français and TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation jointly agreed to add a creative dimension to the program. The students explore artistic practice, accompanied by professional artists (authors, photographers, actors, or restoration craftspeople) to put the artwork and their authors into perspective, as well as the resonance they have in the current day, in their regions.

As from September 2024 and for 2025-2027, four French departments² have been chosen: Côte-d’Or (Bourgogne-Franche-Comté), Ardennes (Grand Est), Creuse (Nouvelle-Aquitaine) and Eure-et-Loir (Centre-Val-de-Loire).

This partnership illustrates the TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation’s unwavering commitment to young people, and strengthens our mission to contribute to making heritage known throughout France. It also demonstrates the firm desire of TotalEnergies Corporate Foundation, for the initiatives they support to be focused on young people in all the regions, both in urban and rural areas.

¹REP = priority education networks, REP+ = reinforced priority education networks
²(Côte-d’Or): Hippolyte Fontaine high school in Dijon. (Ardennes): Rethel agricultural high school (Creuse): Ahun agricultural high school (Eure-et-Loire): Elsa Triolet professional high school