- / 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
The sea that surrounds the Maltese archipelago has long been a course of danger and opportunity. Its central position in the Mediterranean has made it susceptible to enemy incursions—primarily the Ottoman Empire at its peak. It also allowed for a base from which an organised fleet could engage in lucrative trade, attacking enemy ships and raiding ports for profitable plunder.
Corsairing lasted for almost three hundred years, enriching Malta and causing diplomatic issues for the Knights of the Order of St John. Who were these pirates? Many had travelled from Mediterranean ports, fleeing crimes, working alongside the Maltese.
Today, piracy inspires libertarian thinkers, who believe it represented a form of counterpower that escaped the control of governments and multinational corporations. Hackers, saboteurs of computer networks, those capable of turning the digital world to the advantage of autonomous and grassroots organisations, self-identify as ‘pirates’. Activism, solidarity, rescue missions for migrants at sea, community networks, daycare centres, and self-managed health centres align with this image.
Today, the island hosts many places that recall the maritime history of captures and liberations, trade and slavery, glorious and less glorious enterprises.
Corsairing served us to reconsider the meaning of the Mediterranean, which continues to be the ‘mirror boundary’ between seemingly disparate cultures. It is the place where the confrontation between Islam and Europe continues to play out as a hope for coexistence, it represents the obstacle that Europe must redefine, so as to invent a future of two-way exchanges, and broader well-being.
Curatorial Team & Franco La Cecla
ARTISTS: Artist Against the Bomb (Pedro Reyes) / Daniel Jablonski / Dijana Protić / Dolphin Club / Franziska Von Stenglin / Goldschmied & Chiari / Matteo Vettorello / Mel Chin / Post Disaster / Suez Canal / Tom Van Malderen