There’s an unusual exhibition, AnatoArt, in Gozo’s Ċitadella this month: a collection of art exploring our anatomy. It was created by international medical students studying at Queen Mary University of London in Malta, on the Gozo Hospital campus, during a two-week ‘Anatomy through Art and Mindfulness’ courses with art teacher and curator Abi McLeod.

In the first and second years of their studies, these future doctors use art to both investigate the intricacy and wonders of the human body, and to develop mindfulness techniques which will undoubtedly be useful as they become clinical practitioners, the ‘the lifeblood’ of the global medical system.

Hanging in a historic hall within the Ċitadella’s thick bastion, these quirky pieces remind us that, while society and culture has changed rapidly over recent decades, the internal working of our bodies has remained the same for millennia.

How our bodies work is complex and fascinating, intriguing both artists and scientists, including Leonardo da Vinci, whose documentation of dissected specimens laid a foundation for much of today’s medical illustration. Dissection is a time-honoured way to explore the human body, and the medical students at QMUL are fortunate to have this as part of their curriculum, a discipline they treat with the utmost respect.

These future doctors use art to both investigate the intricacy and wonders of the human body.

While da Vinci’s works are renowned for their cool precision and detail, the pieces in this exhibition are warm-hearted, colourful and engaging in many media and styles, depicting bones and internal organs in pencil, biro, paint and fabric.

“We’re welcoming individuality and celebrating people’s individual strengths as well as our internal similarity,” smiles McLeod.

The pieces on show include visceral musculature and skeletal forms in 3D relief on paper, and a medicine cabinet installation in which textile pieces include an eye, kidneys, a liver and a spleen – the simplicity of their forms belying their metabolic complexity. Elsewhere a pair of lush lungs in rich red velvet serve as a reminder that oxygen absorption is a precious process we should treasure.

Look out too for the mixed media collage Consciousness by Hamidah Kolawole in which a head is shown in profile, the brain is subdivided into lobes in different hues. Step closer, and you’ll see text on the lips, a phrase on truth, and perhaps the place of honesty and transparency in 21st-century medicine.

The pieces on show include visceral musculature and skeletal forms in 3D relief on paper.

The words pasted into the vertebrae suggest deeper meanings too, a reminder that these students are learning far more than anatomy as they study here.

Seven years after the island welcomed the first QMUL medical students, the show too seems to have a deeper meaning, offering the local community an insight into the study of medicine, and perhaps sparking interest in the wonders of the human body in the island’s children.

“It’s great to see this show in a community space, a reflection of the active participation of the medical school and its students in Gozo society,” says Anthony Warrens, a professor and Dean for Education, Queen Mary University of London.

AnatoArt, an artistic exploration of human anatomy by future doctors studying at Queen Mary University of London in Gozo is taking place at the Ċitadella until October 31.