A painting by Antoine de Favray (1706-92) called Grand Master Philippe de L'Isle Adam Taking Possession of Mdina (c. 1750) shows, as the title describes, the first Grand Master of the Order in Malta ceremonially entering the fortified gates of Mdina, with members of the nobility ceding to the power commanded by this individual and that which he represents. Favray portrayed L'Isle Adam centrally and with an air of dominance, proclaiming him as the most important person in this composition.
The French artist's intentions are clearly pronounced; the leading power in Malta were the Knights, regardless of other governing forces on the island. However, the reality of the situation was not so straightforward, which leads us to question the veracity of the painting. The nobility of Mdina were not so obliging and fought vehemently for their ideological and physical territory. Mdina and Valletta were in fact competing cities which represented diverse economic and political mechanisms and which also gave birth to opposing structures of identity; the rural-traditional versus the cosmopolitan.
The Knights were themselves cosmopolitan and relied on international trade. Malta's urbanisation began with their arrival in 1530, and as Prof. Carmel Cassar shows, they succeeded in constructing Valletta as a cosmopolitan city which hosted a conglomeration of people with heterogeneous identities, nationalities, languages and social backgrounds. Valletta was expressly designed as a modern city. In contrast, Mdina's narrow winding streets were symbolic of a Medieval-feudal order.
The Valletta-Mdina dichotomy is a subject continuously explored by Dr. Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci in his academic work and artistic practice. It has special resonance in his recent undertakings as artistic director of both the Mdina Cathedral Contemporary Art Biennale 2015-16 and as artistic director of the Strada Stretta Concept, a project which falls under the auspices of the Valletta 2018 Foundation. For quite some time, Schembri Bonaci inhabited Mdina and Valletta simultaneously, working with artists, academics and researchers and, more significantly, the locals of each city.
After pondering on how to build a symbolic link between the two cities, he discussed the idea with Italian artist Ilaria Cuccagna, who had participated in the Mdina Biennale with the project sic transit gloria mundi!, a sculptural exploration of gender and religious statuary. Cuccagna, a tutor of the MA Fine Arts students in the Department of History of Art, was attracted to this tense historical link between old and new Malta, and to the built environment of these spaces.
Cuccagna writes; "I had been walking inside Mdina for the first time, when Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci told me the history of the silent city. I observed the building's wall, the guardian of all these stories. Dr Schembri Bonaci thought it would be very interesting to create a symbolic connection between Mdina and Valletta, in the light of the tensions that had in the past existed between these two capitals."
Thus was born, through the discussions between artistic director and artist, the idea for the creative research project Migratio.
Migratio is a twenty first-century counterpoint to Favray's painting which deals with the tensions between the two cities. Cuccagna will be working on-site in Mdina in the coming days, assisted by the MA in Fine Arts students, to create a study of the architecture of the Church of Saint Peter in Chains. The latter is a small, quasi-forgotten space of worship located down the road from Mdina's main street. It has become a relic of the past; quiet, serene, a meditative space. Specifically, she will be focusing on particular walls which give formal definition to Mdina and Valletta.
Walls are strong representations of power. They delineate inclusive spaces but simultaneously exclude people and activities. A wall presents us with possibilities and barriers; opportunity and adversity. This is why Stanley Borg encourages us to look beyond walls, beyond the ramparts, to understand our own identity.
The focus of Migratio will be on a wall; the form of an exterior wall of the aforementioned church. Cuccagna's piece will then be transported to Strait Street, the polar opposite of the religious-moral territory marked by the church. Instead of peace and meditation, The Gut was a place where one encountered chaos, noise, vice, artificially-illuminated signs to lure in the wandering crowd. However, Strait Street is likewise an emblem of the past, yet a more recent and modern past, an urban cultural product. Its current re-birth is a contentious subject which Schembri Bonaci is analysing with his artistic programme. This question was the basis for last February's event AFFFANN, a solo double bass performance by Gjorgji Cincievski, which was a musical exploration of temporality; the life and death of cultural spaces.
Migratio will add another dimension to this artistic project but in visual form. Cuccagna will be creating a visual study of form and space which will enter into the cracks of history (literally) to understand the past and our understanding of the past in the present.
The transposition of opposing territorial cultures has already taken place in Strait Street, when għannejja from Żejtun performed in Valletta last summer, which was an ideological challenge for the għannejja as well as the artistic director due to the rural-urban dialectics which are also being addressed in Migratio. The relationship between village għannejja and Strait Street is an ongoing project for Schembri Bonaci and the Strada Stretta Concept.
Cuccagna's installation is an attempt to overcome the obstacle of making Mdina fit into Valletta, physically and conceptually, in an organic manner. By doing so, her project will be performing a historical test, or an investigation, on changing perspectives in contemporary society and whether we are able to search for common ground rather than perpetuating an age-old rivalry. Has today's society overcome the divide which separates medieval Mdina from modern Valletta? Are we now so cosmopolitan that we are capable of integrating into any space regardless of difference? This is the beautiful side of cosmopolitanism; universal modes of thought, adaptability to a diversity of situations, a functional heterogeneity, the creation of the new forms due to the interaction of plurality. Valletta really does embody these elements, and, despite all differences, so did Mdina which was the home of different cultural communities in the past.
Migratio will be launched in Strait Street, next to Splendid, on Thursday 5 May at 8pm.