ABOUT
Where the Bored Things Are: A Guide to Looking Again is a free series of guided photo-walks and writing workshops taking place across several villages in Malta. The project invites people to walk through familiar streets, notice small everyday details, and spend time paying attention to places we usually pass without thinking.
This is not about taking professional photographs or being a good writer.
It is about observation. About noticing textures, corners, pauses, and ordinary details that often go unseen.
Participants begin with a guided photo-walk in their chosen village or village cluster. Afterwards, they are invited to a writing workshop where photographs are used as prompts for reflection and storytelling. Images help start conversations, memories, and short pieces of writing.
The work created during the project is later shared in a printed zine. The project concludes with a curated exhibition of photographs and moments captured during the walks, presented at the Bored Peach Club as both the closing of the project and the public launch of the zines.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Each village or cluster of villages hosts:
Two guided photo-walks held over a weekend
Followed by one writing workshop, bringing both groups together
Participation is offered as a single combined experience.
Participation is free but registration is mandatory. Those who register are expected to attend both a photo-walk and the corresponding writing workshop, as the two sessions together form one shared experience.
Participants sign up for a photo-walk and are then invited to attend the linked writing workshop for that village or village cluster.
Photo-walks last approximately 2–4 hours
Writing workshops last up to 6 hours and take place after the walks
To ensure everyone can take part, analogue point-and-shoot cameras will be provided for participants who do not have access to a smartphone or camera. Participants may also use their own devices if they prefer.
WHO CAN TAKE PART?
This project is open to:
Residents of the participating villages, or anyone who feels connected
to the location
People with no prior experience in photography or writing
Adults and participants of legal age
Anyone interested in slowing down and noticing their surroundings
Participation is free, but registration is mandatory.
DATES & LOCATIONS
April 18 / 19
📍 Ħamrun & Marsa
Photowalks led by Lisa Gwen
April 25 / 26
📍 Żebbuġ – 10am
Photowalks led by
Joe Smith & Therese Debono
May 2 / 3
📍 Balzan, Lija, Attard
Photowalks led by Lisa Gwen
May 23 / 24
📍 Marsaxlokk
Photowalks led by
Joe Smith & Therese Debono
Participation is free of charge.
This project is fully funded by Arts Council Malta through the Right to Culture Fund, supporting free access to cultural activities for all.
MORE INFORMATION:
PARTICIPATION
Sign up online using the project Typeform or
Register in person at the local council office of the village where you wish
to attend a photowalk
Places are limited for each walk.
MEET YOUR TUTORS
LISA GWEN
Lisa Gwen is a curator of words and an editor of spaces. Her work and projects are the outcomes of these often overlapping and interchangeable roles which deal with space and its distribution; with aesthetics and design; interpretation and experience. One focuses on words and type, and the other on artworks and installations. Both create images and visuals; both deal with narratives.
Besides an innate passion related to all fields of visual art, Lisa loves playing ‘local tourist’. She explores sites and spaces, scrutinising the natural, the built, and the other landscapes through a camera lens. She has an ever-increasing hunger to make and create, to utilise her written voice visually. She is a feminist, an activist and an aesthete with an incessant need to share, communicate, inspire and inform.
Lisa Gwen has a background in art history, cultural management, media and communications, project management and development.
THERESE DEBONO
Therese is a documentary photographer specializing in places, streets, and portraiture. Her work explores endangered locations, local interiors, and documentary portraiture, with notable projects including Maltese Interiors, Brides on Beds, Class of ‘93, and BLANK.
Born and raised in Malta, Therese holds an MFA in Digital Arts and an MA in Cultural Heritage from the University of Malta. She lectures on photography and cultural heritage at the MCAST Institute for Creative Arts and teaches photography at the University of Malta within the Departments of Communications and Media, as well as Knowledge Science.
LEANNE ELLUL
Leanne Ellul is a poet, prose writer, and playwright whose work spans both adult and children’s literature. Her poetry collections include L-Inventarju tal-Kamra l-Kaħla (Merlin, 2020), Bjuda (Aġenzija Żgħażagħ, 2022), and Il-Manifest tas-Siġar (EDE Books, 2022). Her poems have been published in adda, Asymptote, Modern Poetry in Translation, Columbia Journal, The Dallas Review, Voice & Verse, The Poetry Lighthouse, Tummy Ache, F Magazine, and Circumference, and have been translated into Arabic, English, German, Croatian, Frisian, Italian, Greek, and Slovenian. She is also the author of two award-winning young adult novels, Gramma (Merlin, 2015) and be;n il-kmiem (Merlin, 2025). Leanne lectures in Maltese language, literature, and creative writing, and is the Artistic Director of Inizjamed, a Malta-based literary NGO that organises the annual Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival.
JOE SMITH
Joe received a standard academic education, but after joining the Malta Government in his late teens, he pursued further studies in the arts. His interests span photography, painting, and graphic media. A professional photographer since 1979, he is a Fellow of the Malta Institute of Professional Photographers and various UK professional photographic institutions. He also studied graphic design in Florence, Italy, before earning his MFA in Digital Arts from the University of Malta in 2015.
His portfolio focuses on social documentary, performing arts, portraiture, architecture, and fine art photography. His 33-year documentation of star musicians at the Malta Jazz Festival is internationally recognized. Joe has received numerous national and international awards and has exhibited extensively in Malta and abroad.
This project is about taking time.
About noticing small things.
About sharing attention with others in the place you live.
If this sounds like something you would enjoy, you are very welcome to join.
Come walk with us. Look again.
Contact
info(@)boredpeachclub.com