If human faces give away the emotional and physical pain that people go through, the same could be said of feet.

In feet, as in faces, one can see birth, death and rebirth and can sense strength, weakness, leisure and toil.

Thirteen canvas banners displaying black and white photographs of feet can be viewed along the upper part of Merchants Street, Valletta until October 10.

This installation was propelled by a team consisting of painter-philosopher Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, photographer Omar Camilleri and the initiator of the overall concept, Josephine Vassallo.

The three retired to their intellectual lofts and spawned these bookmarks underlining people’s milestones as they go about a journey of enlightenment on this weather-beaten planet.

Out of an incredible hoard of 3,000 photographs shot by Mr Camilleri, the trio put into overdrive their gate-keeping skills and eventually cast aside the whole stockpile except for 27.

These 27 were then cropped in order to fit festa banners – pavaljuni, an idea hatched by Dr Schembri Bonaci.

“We had to convince people to express feelings through their feet. It’s an artistic display of life, love, prayer, suffering and death. It’s a superb montage hung onto banners which double as an intrinsic element of a Maltese festa,” Dr Schembri Bonaci noted.

The photographs were shot in prison, in a gentlemen’s club, in a field, a cemetery, a Catholic church, a mosque, a Yoga session, a Hindu Buddhist meeting, in a convent for cloistered nuns and in a gay couple’s house. Not to mention a summer school, judo display, ballet workshop, tiny baby feet and an intricately tattooed leg among others.

The spiritual and philosophic sides of this massive presentation – the banners, each measuring six by five metres – merge, transforming the aesthetic whole into a portal that shines a light onto our inner selves.

Ms Vassallo said she challenged Dr Schembri Bonaci and Mr Camilleri to come on board and they put their heart in it during five months of work.

“It was a pity that the installation, the first of its kind in Merchants Street had to be taken down during Notte Bianca, last Saturday, because of inclement weather.

“One should display the best available artistic expressions in Merchants Street and in the rest of the city and not grind to a halt with Notte Bianca.

“The backing by the Merchants Street business community, the mayor and the sponsors was a great boost for this initiative to come true,” Ms Vassallo said.