Integrarti Festival, together with Inizjamed and the Port Regional Council, celebrated their artistic and literary collaboration through the launch of a publication. This collaboration embraced the linguistic and cultural diversity within the region’s communities, while giving people of all ages the opportunity to express themselves through storytelling.
The literary branch of Integrarti Festival included a series of writing and storytelling workshops throughout the month of October at Żabbar A Primary School, as well as at the St Joseph Home for the Elderly in Fgura.
These activities saw children and older residents creating collective stories that reflect the varied experiences, languages and cultures present within the two communities.
The final publication takes the form of a large poster that can be folded into a cootie catcher − a creative and interactive medium that brings the stories to life in an unconventional way.
The excerpts will also be accessible in different languages through a dedicated site, giving a new dimension to this project of inclusion and community interaction. The publication was designed by Naomi Gatt.
During the workshops, the children used their imagination to write stories about sweet and mischievous characters, while the elderly revisited the past to recount precious memories dating back to the time of the war.
The children’s writing workshops were led by Kit Azzopardi and Justine Somerville, while those of the elderly were led by Claudia Gauci and Priscilla Cassar.
The literary branch of the project was coordinated by Leanne Ellul on behalf of Inizjamed, as part of the Integrarti Festival, whose artistic directors are Joseph Galea and Francesca Zammit.
Veronika Mercieca managed the project on behalf of the Port Regional Council.
Galea said: “Integrarti Festival was instrumental this year in enabling artists from different communities to collaborate and share their talents in various initiatives across the localities of the Port Region. This region has recognised that integration not only helps different people feel that they belong to the place where they live, but also adds value to cultural activities that already exist locally.”
The closing of the project and the official launch of the publication was held on Thursday, at St Joseph Home, Fgura. Żabbar A Primary School students and the elderly participants in the project were present for the event.
Ellul, the artistic director of Inizjamed and the coordinator of the literature strand within this project, said that “it is something truly special that at the end of this project, the different generations came together.”
She added that this was not the first time that Inizjamed led projects of this kind, and that it will keep doing so “because it sees great value in them”.
“They are a way for literature and storytelling to reach different audiences and, through them, for those same audiences to become the protagonists. It is also a way for children to learn in a different environment and not associate writing with something tedious or compulsory. In the case of the elderly, it gives value to their priceless experience,” she said.
For more information about Integrarti Festival and its activities, visit the Integrarti or Inizjamed pages on social media.
