The Malta Pavilion for the maltabiennale.art was inaugurated today at the National Museum of Art MUŻA, and will be open to visitors until Friday, 31 May, 2024.
Minister for National Heritage Owen Bonnici said that the pavilion offers a unique insight into the country, based on different embodied narratives as a nation intimately connected with the Mediterranean Sea that surrounds it and with a continuous call for peace.
"The aim of this pavilion, with the theme 'SEJBIET U STEJJER' (Finds and Stories), is to explore and communicate these narratives," Bonnici said.
He also said that the pavilion also showcases a number of works from the collection of contemporary art housed in MUŻA and explains how the selected works, which follow the emphasized theme in the Pavilion, form part of a much larger collection whose goal is to document the works, development, and achievements of artists in international history.
Heritage Malta CEO Noel Zammit said that maltabiennale.art 2024 marks a new chapter in the history of Heritage Malta, which is expected to be marked every two years from now on.
He emphasized that the Biennale initiative reaffirms the agency's mission to move with the times despite its obvious ties to the past.
This initiative is also an excellent means by which Heritage Malta continues to fulfill its mission on various levels - including improving its international profile; enhancing accessibility to its sites and museums through extensive audience engagement; and fostering deep dialogue that provides new life to sites and museums and changes their static nature into lively discussion centers, Zammit said.
During the opening evening, maltabiennale.art curator Katya Micallef shared her definition of contemporary art; each of which can question our values, our way of life, and our history, and contemporary artists do the same by using various art media and presenting them in a context that can be in an art gallery, on a specific site, or even online, while following contemporary trends in visual arts.
Through different concepts, artists Norbert Francis Attard (1951), Alexandra Aquilina (1987), Trevor Borg (1976), and Patrick J. Fenech (1957) present a sense of discovery towards Malta’s history while exposing visible narratives in contemporary Malta.
The artists are: Kurt Arrigo (1969), Kris Micallef (1988), Debbie Caruana Dingli (1962), Jesmond Vassallo (1976), Andrew Diacono (1958), Ryan Falzon (1988), Alex Attard (1955), Nigel Baldacchino (1989), Teresa Sciberras (1979), Robert Zahra (1977), Margerite Pulè (1976), Charlie Cauchi (1980), Kane Calì (1983), Nico Conti (1992), Pierre Portelli (1961), Ruth Bianco (1955), Paul Scerri (1959), and Charles is-City Gatt (1944-2022).
Opening hours are from 10am to 6pm, and tickets can be purchased from: www.heritagemalta.mt/store as well as from Heritage Malta's museums and sites.
For more information about the Malta Pavilion, one can visit this page: https://maltabiennale.art/pavilion/findings-and-fantasies-real-and-imagined-narratives-inspired-by-the-identity-of-our-genes/