Ms Kim Farrugia, a postgraduate student at the Faculty for the Built Environment, and Alessandra Bianco, an undergraduate student at the Faculty of Engineering, formed part of the shortlisted collective joint proposal for the national monument in honour to the literary scholar, poet, thinker, Oliver Friggieri.
The for this competition was issued by Heritage Malta, in collaboration with the Ministry for National Heritage, Arts and Local Government, and under the auspices of the Office of the Prime Minister.
The collective joint proposal was led by Dr Lino Bianco, a resident academic at the Department of Architecture and Urban Design, and included the participation of Antonio Mifsud, a local sculptor versed in human anatomy. The design team had also submitted another joint proposal which was not shortlisted.
The idea of a collective joint proposal for a monument is a first for Malta. Furthermore, it is a first where half of the team is women – public sculpture is significantly marked by their absence – and half are students of our Alma Mater which Oliver Friggieri formed an integral part of.
Ms Farrugia is of one of the students introduced to the critical thinking of Friggieri during the course of lectures by Bianco, whereas over the past year and a half, Ms Bianco had been assisting Lino Bianco in a compilation of poems in Maltese, Italian, English and Latin of a poet and a former teacher of Friggieri, a publication which would have included a critical study by Oliver Friggieri.
