Malta Biennale – Curatorial Research and Artistic Direction
Insulaphilia, Mediterranean Studies, and Contemporary Art Biennials
Malta Biennale is a contemporary art biennial situated in the central Mediterranean, developed as a platform for curatorial research, artistic experimentation, and public engagement across insular, postcolonial, and geopolitical contexts.
The curatorial framework of the Biennale investigates the Mediterranean as a space of mobility, conflict, and cultural entanglement, addressing themes such as migration, borders, ecological transformation, and cultural resistance. Artistic direction and research are grounded in long-term inquiry, interdisciplinary methodologies, and collaboration with artists, researchers, and public institutions.
Initiated with the 2024 edition Insulaphilia, Malta Biennale is conceived as an evolving biennial structure, extending beyond single editions and contributing to international debates on biennials, island studies, and the civic role of contemporary art, in view of future editions including Malta Biennale 2026.
- / Can you Sea?
The Mediterranean as a Political Body
- / Decolonizing Malta:
Polyphony is Us - / The Counterpower of Piracy
- / The Matri-Archive of the Mediterranean
- / Public Program
For the first edition of Malta Biennale, I aimed to examine the Mediterranean from an insular perspective. Far from being something pure, the island is always a principle of composition and invention. It beckons one to traverse the surrounding sea, to touch other lands. The first thing I noticed, as soon as I began my field research, is that Malta is adept at transformation, a crossroads of arrivals and departures; as a nation-state, the Maltese identity emerges from centuries of colonisation. Indelibly linked to the various seafaring cultures that have dominated and declined through the region, Malta’s natural harbours have provided shelter, refuge and trading outposts to all who sought to settle, conquer, and reign. Malta boasts seven-thousand-two-hundred-and-twenty-three years of civilisation. To envision the first edition of the biennale in such an ancient land we had to work in tandem with its history.
For this reason, the Central Pavilion and the National/ Thematic Pavilions took shape within the island’s most illustrious and evocative sites; all the contemporary artists called to exhibit in these venues were asked to forge an intimate relationship with these locations. To envision new possible futures for the Mediterranean region, I felt that we must rekindle our affection for the places that constitute our history and cultural identity. This narrative was only possible alongside the vision of artists who chronicled a sea that unites in the face of historical fractures—those forces that extract-exploit-instrumentalise Mare Nostrum.
Insulaphilia means the importance of recognising hybridity within culture. Malta is not one but many; multicultural, multiracial, multilingual. A participatory configuration of invisible networks across the Mediterranean connected the East to the West and the North to the South to stimulate exchange, vision, and unwavering trust in individual and collective transformation. Malta Biennale proposed a Mediterranean expedition into the possibility of harmonious coexistence.
The first edition of Malta Biennale was divided into 4 curatorial sections:
/ Can You Sea? The Mediterranean as a Political Body
/ Decolonizing Malta: Polyphony is Us
/ The Counterpower of Piracy
/ The Matri-Archive of the Mediterranean
Read the Curatorial Statement
- ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
- Sofia Baldi Pighi
- CURATED BY
- Sofia Baldi Pighi
- Emma Mattei
- Elisa Carollo
Biennale
Malta,
Gozo
March 13th -
May 31st 2024
Julian Vassallo
Nigel Baldacchino
Malta
Biennale
INSULAPHILIA
- / Can you Sea?
The Mediterranean as a Political Body
- / Decolonizing Malta:
Polyphony is Us - / The Counterpower of Piracy
- / The Matri-Archive of the Mediterranean
- / Public Program
For the first edition of Malta Biennale, I aimed to examine the Mediterranean from an insular perspective. Far from being something pure, the island is always a principle of composition and invention. It beckons one to traverse the surrounding sea, to touch other lands. The first thing I noticed, as soon as I began my field research, is that Malta is adept at transformation, a crossroads of arrivals and departures; as a nation-state, the Maltese identity emerges from centuries of colonisation. Indelibly linked to the various seafaring cultures that have dominated and declined through the region, Malta’s natural harbours have provided shelter, refuge and trading outposts to all who sought to settle, conquer, and reign. Malta boasts seven ntwenty-three years of civilisation. To envision the first edition of the biennale in such an ancient land we had to work in tandem with its history.
For this reason the Central Pavilion and the National/ Thematic Pavilions took shape within the island’s most illustrious and evocative sites; all the contemporary artists called to exhibit in these venues were asked to forge an intimate relationship with these locations.
To envision new possible futures for the Mediterranean region, I felt that we must rekindle our affection for the places that constitute our history and cultural identity. This narrative was only possible alongside the vision of artists who, tireless in their efforts, chronicled a sea that unites in the face of historical fractures—those forces that extract-exploit-instrumentalise Mare Nostrum.
Insulaphilia means the importance of recognising hybridity within culture. Malta is not one but many; multicultural, multiracial, multilingual. A participatory configuration of invisible networks across the Mediterranean connected the East to the West and the North to the South to stimulate exchange, vision and unwavering trust in individual and collective transformation.
Malta Biennale proposed a Mediterranean expedition into the possibility of harmonious coexistence.
READ THE CURATORIAL STATEMENT