Spray paint and graffiti are not usually looked upon favourably at school. But students involved in a street art project recently learnt more than just new artistic techniques, as Veronica Stivala found out.
A sprawling rainbow-coloured graffiti mural last week injected a boost of colour in St John’s Square, Valletta. The mural exhibition was the climax of the project Comics in the Classrooms and formed part of the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms project co-funded by the Kreattiv scheme and the British Council.
Artist James Micallef Grimaud, Spanish graffiti artist Cezar Zamacola and German graffiti artist Christian Langer worked with senior school students from seven schools to come up with their thoughts on diversity and inclusion and express them through graffiti murals.
Micallef Grimaud explained: “It was important for this to be a hands-on project. Through it the students learnt artistic techniques like mirroring, lettering, composition as well as how to use spray paint safely.”
The exhibition consisted of seven panels spelling out the word Diversity, each sporting a different theme and colour, moving along the spectrum from yellow to sterling green.
The middle panel, featuring the letter ‘R’, is an outlook of lifestyles, moving from the 1950s to the present day. Two afro-heads lurk in the 1970s corner while a disco ball hovers around the 1980s.
‘D’ represents landscape diversity, including sports, the performing arts, music, culture and biodiversity.
Watching children at the exhibition’s launch it was evident how proud they were of their art, what fun they had creating it and how important it was that they worked as a team and were given (almost) free rein of their project.
The participating schools were Stella Maris College, St Margaret College Boys’ Secondary School, San Ġorġ Preca College Girls’ Junior Lyceum, Maria Regina College, St Aloysius’ College, St Benedict College and St Edward’s College.
To watch video excerpts of the students working on the murals visit http://vimeo.com/55957543 .