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- / Saturday is Alright to Fight for Your Rights
What kind of relationship exists between Lampedusa and other Mediterranean islands such as Malta? What idea of Europe is at play between their borders?
On the occasion of the Malta Biennale, the research group Rethinking Lampedusa has been invited to contribute to the public program with a residency program named Rethinking Lampedusa, Rethinking Malta - establishing an international collaboration between art academies.
A performative sea crossing was at the core of the residency program to connect the islands of Lampedusa and Malta, symbolically mending the Mediterranean. The program was open to the public with a series of events that took place at the Armoury in Birgu, where an evocative meditative chamber was set up with an audio-visual installation titled “Il mare mi ha rifiutato”.
The residency program was promoted by MADE Program - Art &Design Academy based in Siracusa, involving students from both its Visual Arts BA Program and from MCAST - The Malta College of Arts, Science & Technology. The students participated in a site-specific research project, spending five days on the island of Lampedusa, one day sea crossing, and four days in Malta, reflecting together on the condition of the migrant, the concept of the island as a utopia, and the connections between the two islands.
Formal tutors and external guests guide participants through site-specific explorations, pedagogical experiments, and open discussions, cultivating an embodied knowledge of the agency. The program offers horizontal, non-hierarchical, and participatory workshop activities based on different experiential explorations of the island according to students’ preferred artistic practice. Sounds, movements, maps, photographs and videos, and utopian manifestos, come together to draw a new geopolitical metaphor for the Sicilian island, unfolding the condition of the central Mediterranean area as a way to understand the human contemporary condition.
ARTISTS: Rethinking Lampedusa