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