{"id":9170,"date":"2025-02-17T07:32:34","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T07:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/?p=9170"},"modified":"2025-08-29T03:18:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T01:18:22","slug":"launch-of-storybook-for-children-based-on-venice-biennale-maltese-pavilion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/launch-of-storybook-for-children-based-on-venice-biennale-maltese-pavilion\/","title":{"rendered":"Launch of storybook for children based on \u2018Venice Biennale\u2019 Maltese Pavilion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u201cThis book is an excellent way to propagate the use of different artistic mediums to our young generations as it is stemmed from the&nbsp;<em>Cave of Darkness<\/em>&nbsp;installation, presented in a manner which will bring the idea of&nbsp;<em>La Biennale di Venezia<\/em>&nbsp;closer to Maltese children\u201d, said Minister Owen Bonnici. He commended the educational aspect of this project, as thanks to this workshop, these children also learned more about G\u0127ar Dalam, and our country\u2019s heritage. \u201cOur strategy is to educate and foster an artistic culture&nbsp;amongst the younger members of our society to cultivate love towards the cultural sector from an early age\u201d, he continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The book, named&nbsp;<em>Smajna Isimna ta\u0127t l-Art<\/em>&nbsp;was written by Loranne Vella, who won the National Book Prize with her book&nbsp;<em>Rokit<\/em>, in 2018.&nbsp; She has developed the concept with Borg, as she was intrigued by the story, loosely based on G\u0127ar Dalam\u2019s history, and the imaginary layers added on top of it intended to question and complicate the space between reality and&nbsp;fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/artscouncilmaltagovmt.skipdns.link\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/1573136893.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The narrative resulted in this storybook&nbsp;for children, including colour illustrations. The enigmatic story is based on the adventure of two foreign explorers who land in Malta to investigate a newly discovered cave. The find that awaits them underground evokes the pieces included in Borg\u2019s installation \u2013 bones, skulls, ancient weapons and tools, shells, votive statuettes, pottery, etc. The story unexpectedly unfolds into a dark abyss, mysteriously swallowing one of the explorers who gets caught up in the midst of a complex cavernous network lurking beneath the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The aim of the storybook is to allow children (and older people) to explore further meanings and interpretations related to the&nbsp;<em>Venice Biennale<\/em>&nbsp;installation. The story is also an extension of the G\u0127ar Dalam clay workshops held earlier this year and the poems written by Elizabeth Grech and Giulia Privitelli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The book launch took place at Bir\u017cebbu\u0121a Primary School, with two readings by the author and artist. Students were also given the opportunity to explore G\u0127ar Dalam objects in the classroom together with explanations about caves by the natural history senior curator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Copies of&nbsp;<em>Smajna Isimna ta\u0127t l-Art<\/em>&nbsp;were given out to all year six students present for the launch and an e-book version will be uploaded on Heritage Malta\u2019s website. This event was coordinated by Trevor Borg, and Heritage Malta as well as Arts Council Malta, which both fall under the remit of the Ministry for Justice, Culture and Local Government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minister for Justice, Culture and Local Government Owen Bonnici announced the publication of a children\u2019s storybook aimed at for 10-12-year olds, based on Trevor Borg\u2019s Cave of Darkness \u2013 Port of No Return, which forms part of this year\u2019s Venice Biennale Maltese Pavilion installation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14488,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170\/revisions\/14488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}