The German-Maltese Circle in collaboration with the Malta School of Art, the Malta Tourism Authority, the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts and Bank of Valletta is holding an exhibition by 27 artists on Filfla and Toteninsel (Island of the Dead).

The exhibition will be inaugurated on 17 October when sculptor Joseph Casha, the co-ordinator and creator of the project will deliver an illustrated opening speech, an homage to Arnold Bocklin. The art exhibition of paintings and sculpture are by Maltese artists whose work was inspired by Arnold Bocklin’s Toteninsel, in which they depict Filfla as a focal point and giving it a Maltese orientation.

Joseph Casha explained how the idea came about. “The idea of creating a project on Toteninsel [meaning The isle of the dead] began when I came across the website belonging to Pascal Lecoq – www.toteninsel. Here I learned that many international artists had interpreted Arnold Bocklin’s painting (he painted five versions which are almost the same) so I thought I should have a go at it myself.

At first I was about to create three versions of my own and Filfla was not on my mind at that point in time; I realised then that this project could be attempted by other artists, mostly School of Art teachers, students and ex-students. It is here that the idea of replacing Bocklin’s island with Filfla came to my mind. Several artists whom I approached accepted my invitation to take part so I decided to organise an activity, that is an illustrated talk by myself on Arnold Bocklin and other artists who interpreted his painting together with an art exhibition with the theme Filfla and Toteninsel.

At School of Art I have delivered a good number of talks during the last few years so this time I decided to organise the activity somewhere else. Considering that the artist in question is Swiss and had many connections with Germany, I thought that the German-Maltese Circle would be the right place. I made an appointment with Mr Victor Sammut, who, after a few days gave me the committee’s decision to go ahead with my project.”

The exhibition is being held at the German-Maltese Circle, Messina Palace, 141 St Christopher Street, Valletta and will run from 18 October to 10 November.