The 4th edition of the Valletta International Visual Arts (VIVA) festival will take place in April - May this year. With the festival now reaching maturity, it is time to explore the future role it can have within the visual arts sector in Malta.
Since its inception, VIVA has fostered broad creative exchanges between Malta-based artists and curators, and others from overseas who are invited to show their work during this festival. The festival's collaborations and long-term development of projects, have given it a broad resonance within the visual arts scene in Malta; its sustainability in future years is essential to the continuation of this work.
VIVA 2018 embraces the theme of multiplicity - this refers to the multiplicity of themes, disciplines and artist practices that are contained within one festival. It also reflects the growing number of artists and creatives within the visual arts scene in Malta, and the diversity and multiplicity of cultures they work within.
A multiplicity of cultures is seen within the VIVA project Azure Watch: Office for Public Memory. Building on a fruitful Artist's Residency in Gozo, this project has issued a public Call for Concepts, which invites artists to submit proposals for new works that reinterpret the iconography of the Azure Window and of the Azure Watch project. The Call invites creative reassessments of the Azure Window via any artistic medium, taking on concepts such as built and monumental heritage, nostalgia, collective memory, environmental destruction and decomposition. Proposals for impossible art are particularly encouraged. A number of these proposals will be selected and developed by Spazju Kreattiv during the 2018/19 programme.
VIVA 2018 is just around the corner. But we would like to ensure its sustainability in future years, and forge its place in the visual arts sector in Malta for many years to come.
VIVA 2018 will take place from 14th April to 27th May, at Spazju Kreattiv (St James Cavalier), the German-Maltese Circle (Palazzo Messina), the Malta China Cultural Center (Melita Street, Valletta), the Malta School of Art (Old Bakery Street, Valletta), and at The Mill (Gabriel Caruana Foundation) in Birkirkara.
VIVA 2018 is produced by Fondazzjoni Kreattività, in collaboration with Spazju Kreattiv, Arts Council Malta, the Goethe Institute, the German Maltese Circle, Malta China Cultural Centre, Malta School of Art, Ostrale, the Gabriel Caruana Foundation, the Meta Foundation, EU-Japan Fest and EDAAV and is supported by Valletta 2018.