In recent years, many global exhibitions and publications have explored the contentious relationship between religion and contemporary art. No doubt, contemporary art no longer subscribes to the conventionalities of religious ritual and doctrine. The primary focus is directed towards the cultural effect of religious iconography and narrative, on how these may be transformed in the twenty-first century into visual articulations of culture and selfhood. Last year's edition of the Mdina Cathedral Contemporary Art Biennale brought together over 100 international artists to critically debate this urgent question on the role of religion and spirituality today.

Four independent artists working as the Malta Street Art Collective chose to investigate religious visual culture and its ritualistic basis in a collective mixed-media exhibition held between 21 December 2016 and 7 January 2017. The House of Expressive Liberties unfolded across Strait Street's Splendid, coherently designed across four spaces.

The wall of the staircase leading from the ground floor to the first floor was adorned with a series of large photographs by Finnish artist Lasse Ullven. Entitled Idols Cracked Like Ice, the series featured well-composed and unedited close-up shots of weathered sculptures of religious figures that are commonly found near the front doors of Maltese houses, accompanied by quotes from the writings of Douglas P. and the Bible. Lasse's camera-perspective combined his experience as a foreigner observing these popular cultural artefacts and also his background as a theology graduate. Each individual photograph permitted one to take a close look at these dilapidated sculptures to which we have become overly accustomed. What emerged most powerfully was not the aesthetic of the sculptures but their materiality. Their ephemerality underlined the faltering nature of belief and also of the production of devotional objects, exposing the memory of what have now become cultural ruins.

The next and largest room illustrated the social concerns of street artist James Micallef Grimaud a.k.a Twitch in a series of large paintings that re-interpreted the image and function of Catholic saints, all dealing with the theme of consumerism, waste and the chaos of present-day traffic. James is known for his crudely explicit artistic statements. His migrant donkey burdened by the weight of religious extremism created for the Mdina Biennale was a vivid portrait of the contemporary crisis. In this exhibition, each painting was highly critical of major issues of global concern, yet James' appropriation of images of religious baroque statuary gave a resonant local tone to the work. Vanquishing the Demon showed St. Michael slaying Satan, who lay atop a gigantic burger. Beneath the painting was a mound of rubbish and garbage bags alluding to the dominance of junk food and consumerism in contemporary society. To St. Isidore's Dismay showed the patron saint of farmers wearing a gas mask because of the toxic waste that poisons the environment. The third painting, A Prayer to the Archangel, polemicised the environment of traffic congestion and road chaos that engulfs us. The paintings evinced the grotesque condition of consumerism as well as the continued exaltation of pseudo-baroque monuments in Malta.

This display was followed by the psychic performance stage of California/Oakland-based artist Spy Emerson. Spy is a performance artist who had previously collaborated on a project with James called The Saints of Expressive Liberties. Her piece for this exhibition, The Earthworm Oracle, was performed during designated slots. The set-up consisted of an amalgamation of vintage furniture and objects wherein the artist staged the prophecies of the psychic earthworm. The choice of presenting a subterranean creature as a medium emphasised the absurdity of the belief in prophets who deliver seemingly divine messages of truth. The perpetuation of pre-modern oracular rituals was trivialised by Spy in her improvised performance that theatricalised the bizarreness of placing faith in irrational channels.

The final room was converted into a multi-layered immersive installation by Rachel Formosa called The Chapel of St. Capital at the Garden of Earthly Delights. The conceptual work elicited a socio-political narrative across a three-dimensional space. The chapel appropriated images and practices from the catholic religion to comment on the spiritual frugality of capitalism and made direct reference to the merciless ventures of prominent property speculators. Vegetation was designed and weaved across all walls of the room, assimilating the catholic notion of heaven and referencing Hieronymous Bosch's seminal painting, the name of which appears in the title of Rachel's work.  Her use of organic material, which decomposed throughout the duration of the exhibition, underlined the temporal status of existence. Juxtaposing the colour red with the green background, the room displayed a table headed by the face of Donald Trump surrounded by those of seven local figures all connected to the property market. Above the table, hanging from chains, was an image of Caravaggio's Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy which signalled the focus on repentance. The presence of two blow-ups of late sixteenth-century Magdalene nuns recalled the act of the cleansing of sins, in this case those unfolding at the patriarchal table. The chapel housed a tripartite mirror presented as a three-dimensional vanitas painting, labelled as The Triptych of the Temptation of St. Capital, adorned with a skull, fruit, decaying flowers and sea shells. The conceptual triptych mirror was intended for viewers to take selfies to become subjects of the artwork itself, underlining the temptation of vanity in current times.

The House of Expressive Liberties offered a critical view on the practices and behaviours that dictate values in the contemporary world. What emerged most profoundly were the religious-like characteristics embedded in these practices, the way in which they are held sacred and blindly followed by the masses. Each artist tackled a different facet of contemporary 'spiritual' rituals, linking these to the religious visual culture that they were born into. Also noteworthy is the choice of venue as Splendid represents a past era under transition. Strait Street has become a renewed creative hub with ever-increasing activity, especially since being promoted as such by the Valletta 2018 Foundation. This exhibition is intended to be the first in a series that will continue to develop on this and similar themes.