Malta has been chosen to host the 2016 World Summit on Arts and Culture. This is both logical and ironic. As long as it is a summit, and the usual business-like attitude is adopted by the usual business-minded people, the island is the best and only logical choice. On the other hand, the fact that Malta was chosen to hold serious debate on a subject that locally is treated as a hobby; that it was chosen to host such an event held by a federation which claims to be dedicated to improving good practice in arts and cultural policy development, is an indication of how to take this summit: with a huge pinch of salt. Culture in Malta is dead – the only culture we get on this island is of the lifeless variety, the Maltese artistic landscape being quite a barren one.
Contemporary art is either non-existent or surrogated by lazy, inferior, mediocre productions receiving much praise in their own blurbs; the latter, in the choice of modifiers, quantifiers and adjectives employed, being usually the high point of creativity and overshadowing the actual artworks or performances themselves, which, basing oneself solely on the description usually written by an over-zealous friend or self, one would have much difficulty locating.
This is not to say that we do not organise cultural events of note. The Valletta International Baroque Festival (attended mostly by foreigners – hah!) is one such event which attracts a veritable crowd, including yours truly. I have in fact attended almost all the events, and must say I enjoyed them immensely. The organisers showed good taste, both in the works presented and in the presentation of works.
But this says absolutely nothing about our cultural scene, nor does it reveal its whereabouts. Such festivals work on established cultural niches, and while we should keep investing time and effort in them, our cultural investment should not exclude – or justify the lack of – action in improving the contemporary scene. Culture should be a living thing. In all major cities, one finds museums and events exhibiting cultural heritage and artistic treasures of yore, but, living with them, beside them, is new art, new culture, a feeling of happening.
A feeling that is blatantly missing on our islands. Apart from some amateur hipsters with delusions of grandeur, the art world in Malta is virtually non-existent. Mediocre theatre, mediocre visual art, mediocre literature permeates the island. Living culture and living art is still safely hidden, sheltered from the general public deep inside the minds of creative people who are left to starve by an uncultured elite and an unintelligent intelligentsia.
This is nevertheless unsurprising in a country where the amateur is king.
Where are the artists that can exploit this “opportunity”? More importantly, who are the artists who will be exposed “to global influences, networking and the sharing of ideas”?
The problem is we do not utilize resources. I myself (and the argument demands that I shun modesty) have been highly commended by the BBC World Service, won an international writing contest by the Olympic Truce Committee, and yet am a nobody in the cultural sphere of the Maltese Islands. My letters and contributions have been published in various international magazines, including The Economist – which, with a circulation of over a million and a half worldwide is quite hard to get published in – and yet local newspapers often reject my well-written, well-argued, well-thought-out and well-researched pieces, publishing instead some uninformed gibberish from correspondents who, one can only conclude, are building their portfolio as comic entertainers.
My friend's photography[1] has been featured on National Geographic, the Huffington Post and Lonely Planet. A text book and a workbook in Estonia will carry his photo on the cover. And yet who is he in Malta? A nobody.
One would think that artistic competition is so great on this island that international success is reduced to nothing; one would be excused for mistaking Malta for a large Florentine bottega, bustling with such accomplished artists, that even international acclaim cannot guarantee you a place in its cultural and artistic circles.
The reality is sadly different and differently sad. For not only is Malta mediocre in artistic output, but the few times its offspring manage to produce something of worth every attempt is seemingly made to obscure the supernatural phenomenon, lest culture be awakened from its perennial slumber and reign over politics and economics.
One need only take a look at the other entrants I competed against in international writing contests. I know one in particular. She is hailed and publicized in her own country. Unless you’re a Eurovision winner, the only doors an artist finds here are closed ones. It’s incredibly hard to get into the “right circles” (which usually have nothing right about them), as people who know nothing about culture want to reap the pecuniary benefits it brings. This of course at the expense of the pecuniary, intellectual and spiritual benefits it would bring the whole island were culture to be entrusted in the hands of those who actually know something about it.
A country which cannot get its act together “will welcome around 500 delegates from 80 countries to discuss the major issues impacting the arts”. I cannot tell whether this is comedy or tragedy.
Even the article in The Malta Independent on Sunday of 19 January reporting our winning bid and the “exciting period” the summit will usher is itself delusional. And let me tell you: I am an artist, and winning the right to hold the 2016 Summit matters to me absolutely zilch. I’d rather see the arts truly flourish than my country holding a business-like summit. And the claim that Valletta is an artistic capital? Has the author been to any other capital, where the arts engulf you and culture is felt in the very air? Has he ever had a conversation with foreign people who visit our islands? I have had many foreign friends, some very close, and while they loved Malta they all voiced a common complaint: the cultural and art scene in Malta is dead.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with boasting about our UNESCO Heritage Sites, being proud of blending old architecture with modern technology, hosting world summits, and exchanging experiences and ideas with the international community. But there is everything wrong with deluding oneself by equating these with a thriving cultural scene. Funding, as important as it may be, is useless without an artistic spirit: money can sustain this, but can never create it. You need stable finances to raise a child and give him the best care, but no amount of bills can give him life.
As for UNESCO Heritage sites, the Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley in Andorra, the Rock Sites of Cappadocia and the archaeological site of Troy in Turkey, the ruins of León Viejo in Nicaragua and our own Hal-Saflieni Hypogeum are all UNESCO world heritage sites and yet, despite the amount of visitors they get every year, they are, culturally and artistically, dead as a door nail. Do we want our capital city to be a museum city or a Museumsquartier?
Culture needs cultural people; art needs artists, real ones, at the helm. Fortunately, artists are born everywhere. However, they can only survive in favourable conditions, where they are fed and given proper care, provided with exposure and given a voice, where they are somebody and not a quaint quirk of society, no matter how quirky they appear, as the best ones tend to do. What use are three days of exchanging ideas when the people making the decisions are not listening?
With the dire cultural situation on our islands, being a nobody in the local art scene is a mark of genius.
Kenneth Charles Curmi
Hamrun
[1] You can have a glimpse of his work, and my own, at http://storytog.com.