- / 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
This section emerged from a collaboration between Heritage Malta, the University of Naples L’Orientale, the Centre for Postcolonial Gender Studies, and the scholars of the Matri-Archive of the Mediterranean. This theme explored the question of the archive in the context of creativity, memory and the artistic, performative female community of the Mediterranean region. It was set to challenge the status quo with a matriarchival perspective, to counterbalance the patriarchal archiving conventions, with a series of questions – What transpires when an archive dedicated to women is established? How is memory transmitted along a matrilineal continuum?
The Matri-archive presented itself as a radical, open archival platform for collecting and discussing issues such as: the ability to manage and transmit knowledge through the creativity of one’s own arts; the generational transmission not only of tradition but also of trauma stemming from patriarchal control, making artistic practice a tool for exorcism, processing and healing; the celebration of the matriarchs who have paved the way for experimentation, innovation and ingenuity for generations to come; the identification of practices, styles and forms necessary for new classification, identification, preservation and transmission.
The invention of an archive capable of preserving legacies denied, uncelebrated yet resistant, for present and future generations, was both necessary and urgent.
Matri-Archive of the Mediterranean & Curatorial Team
ARTISTS: Adama Delphine Fawundu / Amy Bravo / Anna Anderegg / Anna Calleja / Ana Shametaj, Giuditta Vendrame / Bettina Hutschek / Camilla Alberti / Cecilia Vicuña / Isabelle Borg / Jean Marie Appriou / Konstantina Krikzoni / Luz Lizarazo / Madeleine Fenwick / Nina Gerada / Rebecca Bonaci / Romeo Roxman, Martina Georgina / Sandra Zaffarese / Sara Leghissa / Teresa Antignani / Wioletta Kulewska