The Batman Gżirjan project is a socially-engaged art-research project which examines how local inhabitants in a busy and changing town are affected by over-construction, private development, and encroachment of land, and how local people can react at development which is not in their best interests. The project is collaborating with a group of locals from Gżira – a town in the Central Region of Malta which originally developed as a small working-class suburb but which has quickly been transformed into a business community of hotels, restaurants, online gaming companies, real estate, financial institutions and offices. A second group of community members includes fishers who frequently visit the area and spend time on its seafront - a seafront that is also undergoing rapid changes.

The project is being developed with Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar - a non-profit, Non-Governmental Organisation, active since 2006, committed to protecting, preserving and campaigning for Malta - and Inħobbu l-Gżira - a community pressure group established towards the end of 2018, which campaigns for the well-being of the community, for their rights, the environment and heritage of Gżira.​

Workshops focused on the collection of memories, the transformation of the area, its impact and the reaction of participants. Each workshop focused on a different sense (sight, hearing, and smell) each providing a different and specific experience of the space. This led to the processing of the data collected and the development of the final presentation whereby participants will have a more active role, thus becoming co-creators of the final outcome.

Batman Gżirjan forms part of a wider European research project entitled AMASS – Acting on the Margins: Arts as Social Sculpture.

AMASS has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no 870621.