As a French bilingual poet and avid reader, I am fascinated by multilingualism and the act of reading, both of which are at the core of student's life. The fact that the traditional class setting is a lecture, the French word for 'reading', encapsulates this rather eloquently. Yet lectures have come a long way since their etymological sense, and contemporary University environments offer many ways to subvert and engage with lectures: practices are individualised, reclaimed, set in multilingual communities rather than celebrating a single language and speaker hegemony.

In my project, “Students' Lectures: Narratives of Multilingualism”, I want to write about this specific aspect of students life: multilingualism and diversity. The University of Wolverhampton counts over 2500 overseas students from more than 100 countries. Many languages are spoken by staff and students beside English – some even study a second, third or fourth language during their time there... What does it mean in terms of communication on campus? How does it impact facilities, staff, students, and their everyday life? Focusing on multilingualism as an essential part of the student experience celebrates Britain multiculturalism, which is crucial in the current political climate. It also challenges the usual narrative – students are not passively given knowledge; they are actively creating knowledge far wider than the sums of its parts.

I will use material collected on campus and in particular in the Faculty of Art – interviews, discussions, photos, flyers, etc. – to create three text-based productions: a digital fiction produced for and shared on social media, a word/sound/image exhibition showcasing different experiences of multilingual reading on campus, and readings/spoken word events. All of these will be highly collaborative, because what matters most here is to empower students through creative writing.