I created Butterflies Across Borders because, as a teacher, I was becoming increasingly concerned by how fragmented the world feels. Children and teenagers constantly receive messages about borders, conflict and difference, but they have far fewer opportunities to discover how much they share with people growing up elsewhere.
At school, we often teach culture through books, maps and adult explanations. I wanted students to hear from one another more directly and to decide for themselves how they wished to be represented.
The idea began with a small experience between students in Spain and Türkiye. They all received the same A4 butterfly template, yet every result was completely different. The butterflies spoke about families, languages, landscapes, traditions, memories and everyday life. I realised that this very simple activity could become a window from one classroom into another.
I wanted the project to remain realistic for teachers. It had to be free, flexible and possible with ordinary art materials, whether it was used in a rural primary school, a secondary classroom, an Indigenous community, an international school or a university.
This did not begin as a product or an organisation. It began as one teacher’s attempt to bring people a little closer through education. I receive no financial benefit from it. What matters to me is giving children and young people a space to say, through art, “This is who we are, and this is how we see the world.”
In practice, every participating group receives the same A4 butterfly template, together with a teacher’s guide, a classroom presentation and optional warm-up activities. Teachers can adapt everything to the age, needs and context of their students, from young children to teenagers and university art students.
The process usually begins with a conversation about identity. Students reflect on the languages they speak, their families, landscapes, memories, traditions, local symbols and the things that make a place feel like home. They then transform the butterfly using drawing, painting, collage, textiles, digital art or locally available materials.
The shared template creates a visible connection between all participants, while every butterfly remains completely individual. A student in the Amazon, Budapest, rural Ireland or Antarctica begins with the same shape, but tells a different story through it.
Teachers send the finished works as scans or clear photographs, so no originals need to travel. Photographs of students are never required. Some schools also choose to share reflections, classroom displays or short accounts of the creative process.
I bring these contributions together through the project website, Instagram and a newsletter sent every two weeks. This allows participating educators and students to discover one another and opens the possibility of further exchanges between schools.
The project is currently connecting 56 educational centres across 44 countries
It has spread through a great deal of persistence, many late evenings and an almost unreasonable refusal to stop knocking on doors.
I began by contacting teachers and schools personally, often without any previous connection. Some messages received no reply, others led to a “no”, but one open door usually introduced me to another. Teachers recommended the project to colleagues, colleagues shared it with schools in other countries, and several educational networks helped it reach rural, Indigenous and geographically isolated communities.
I coordinate the project alongside my full-time teaching job, so its growth has been very organic and very human. There has been no advertising budget or professional campaign behind it. Just emails, conversations, social media, newsletters and teachers deciding that the idea was worth trying.
This persistence has helped the project grow to 56 educational centres across 44 countries and six continents. The network now includes primary and secondary schools, universities, art schools, international schools, rural and Indigenous communities, small island schools and a school in the Argentine Antarctic territory.
The Embassy of Spain in Hungary and the University of Zaragoza have also supported the initiative, giving greater credibility to a project that remains independent and non-profit.
The project has changed through listening to the teachers who are actually using it.
The shared butterfly template remains the common element, but the way students explore identity has become much more flexible. In some Amazonian communities, for example, teachers suggested using collage so that students could include local plants, textures, colours and images connected to their surroundings. This allowed cultural identity to emerge through familiar materials rather than through drawing alone.
Other schools have used textiles, traditional patterns, digital illustration, photography or written words in local and Indigenous languages. The activities have also been adapted for different ages, from young children exploring family and home to teenagers examining language, belonging, migration and more complex questions of identity.
I originally prepared a lesson plan, presentation and warm-up activity, but these are now offered as flexible starting points. Teachers can shorten, expand or completely reshape the process according to their students, timetable, resources and cultural context. These adaptations have made the project richer. I provide the shared structure, but each community decides how it wishes to speak through it. That balance between a recognisable common form and genuine local freedom has gradually become one of the project’s most valuable principles.
Email me at juanjosedominguezblasco@gmail.com or contact me on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/juan-jos%C3%A9-dom%C3%ADnguez-blasco-14611a403/
I will send you the free resource pack and help you adapt the project to your students and context. No registration fee or previous art experience is required.
