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The Square Bench

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The Square Bench

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    1. Mgarr ix-Xini Bay – Sanap Cliffs loop from Mġarr

    26.7km

    07:39

    580m

    580m

    Expert hike. Very good fitness required. Mostly accessible paths. Sure-footedness required.

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    Expert

    Expert hike. Very good fitness required. Mostly accessible paths. Sure-footedness required.

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    July 1, 2022

    In the past the village square was the place where children, youths and adults met. On the benches, current affairs would be discussed as well as current society developments. However, nowadays, with the exception of a few localities, these benches have merely become bits of decorative furniture as those of the younger generation are more interested in texting on their mobile rather than taking part in animated and sometimes rowdy discussions.

    The square at Għajnsielem now has a special and particular bench … a monument in bronze that is symbolic in which the artist Manuel Farrugia has tried to capture the two realities of the social life of current society as well as that of the past. On one side are models of two elderly people, a couple holding indulging in a conversation at a time when people made human social contact, meeting and conversing on the locality’s bench in the village square. On the other side of the bench a young woman is featured deeply engrossed in her mobile enabling her to make contact with the rest of the world.

    Farrugia said the current generation has totally eroded the concept of people meeting and socialising. He said the scope of his model bench which he terms as ‘the monument to the bench in the village square’ is to create awareness that people should make human contact because by meeting and talking makes life beautiful.

    The monument was commissioned by the Għajnsielem Local Council.

    Artist Farrugia said he had always desired that Għajnsielem boasts a bronze monument, a monument with a difference and as can be seen, a bronze of different hues that enables people to integrate with the monument. The idea is that people can sit between the two realities and have themselves pictured. He said we are living through both of these realities, one perhaps a memory but the other a modern technological development, enshrined in a public square bench.

    Manuel Farrugia had the bench cast at the Domus Dei Foundry in Rome and said he had used a very good strain of bronze with a unique colouring for Malta as this incorporates various hues.

    Bron: tvmnews.mt/en/news/il-bank-tal-pjazza-li-village-square-bench-reflects-the-realities-of-the-past-and-today-ir-realta-tal-bierah-u-tal-lum

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      Elevation 100 m

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