Unresolved histories resist containment. They persist through silence, absence, and surface level repetition, forming a persistent tension between what is remembered and what remains unacknowledged. Legacy brings this tension into material focus, where truth, justice, and collective responsibility are not abstract ideals but conditions embedded within the present.

To mark its 25th anniversary, Spazju Kreattiv has commissioned four leading artists as part of its renewed phase of growth and reflection. Alongside the documentation and preservation of its permanent art collection, now publicly accessible through a recent digital archive, the initiative has also generated a series of exhibitions presenting these works and the organisation's evolving approach to collecting art. Rather than simply celebrating its anniversary and the artists' legacy, the programme opens up space for ongoing reflection on the collection's place within today's shifting cultural landscape.

One of the commissioned artists is Marie Louise Kold (b. 1974), a Scandinavian artist working across international contexts, known for her use of copper, bronze, and brass, which she transforms through processes of etching and patination. Legacy stands as one of her heaviest and most challenging projects to date. It is structured around two primary materials, Maltese limestone and polished copper, yet its conceptual reading breaks into longstanding social and historical tensions that remain unresolved.

Stemming from Spazju Kreattiv's initial question of "why do we collect?" Kold's immediate response of "we collect to remember" led to reflection on remembrance at a collective, societal level and how this shapes the individual self. In this context, remembrance becomes an active engagement with unresolved events, where trauma persists through absence, silence, and the lack of closure. This tension has a particularly strong hold when considered through specific moments in Malta's recent history.

1977 and 2017 mark the killings of Karin Grech and Daphne Caruana Galizia through acts of political violence that remain unresolved, leaving a lasting rupture within Maltese society. For Kold, who was living and working in Malta at the time during the assassination of Caruana Galizia, this was not distant history but something in her immediate presence. Set against this is the collective memory of the Second World War, where Malta endured some of the heaviest bombing of the war, yet this period has been absorbed into a narrative of resilience, solidarity, and national pride. Kold reflects that, "it was clear to me that the trauma is not in the past, it's fresh... the lack of a resolution means it's still raw and festering".

These layered histories of remembrance and rupture become the conceptual ground from which Kold's sculptural response emerges translating abstract tensions into material form, operating across different levels of visibility and interpretation. Etched into the Maltese limestone is a passage from the Constitution relating to the rights of the individual, forming a literal and symbolic foundation. From this base emerges a hand-polished copper form shaped as a quarter of the eight-pointed Maltese cross, invoking the beatitudes of truth and justice. At first glance, the work reads as a refined homage to Malta's past, with the engraved text reflected across the hand-polished mirror surface of the copper and with the tip of the cross pointing to the word espressjoni (expression). Yet when viewed in its entirety, the reverse reveals an internal rupture, where the Maltese cross appears to have exploded outward from within, staining the constitutional surface and fracturing the sediment down to its core.

Rather than functioning as commemoration alone, Legacy positions memory as an active and unresolved condition, where historical and contemporary violence continue to coexist within the present. Its relevance lies in this refusal of closure, insisting instead on the ongoing negotiation between remembrance, truth, and justice. As Kold reflects: "Hope lies in remembering so that the truth can be spoken and justice can be done."

Legacy is currently exhibited at Spazju Kreattiv until today and forms part of its permanent collection.