Opening exhibition at Gżira primary school

February 2023

As part of Gżira’s Pilot, VARCITIES has launched a green, educational and playful journey for school children and teachers at St Clare College Gzira Primary School. This activity started on 23rd February 2023 with an Opening Exhibition.

A mixed-use outdoor learning space with a cubic mixed-use structure was installed in the inner courtyard, providing the school community with countless opportunities to learn about biodiversity, ecology, science and art in their own school garden. Over 200 kids participated during the day of the opening exhibition of the outdoor learning space and were thrilled to see how their schoolyard transformed. Several co-design artistic and practical workshops were held with children, making them aware and being critical of their environment, and instilling a sense of ownership by making them part of the co-creation process.

This activity would have not been possible without the remarkable work carried out by artist Laura Besançon, who has lent us her knowledge and done extensive research about the significance of creative and playful interactions, Tom Van Malderen for designing and constructing the outdoor furniture which was previously used for our Pop-up parks, and help from the University of Malta team, and our project partners the Gzira Local Council, ACT – Malta and the St Clare College Gzira Primary. This activity is also supported by Arts Council Malta.

At the core of VARCITIES, we believe that nature-based solutions are inevitably unique and context-specific. This is why the co-creation process together with local communities is an important aspect of our Project and it represents a key moment of participation.