Even by the early 17th century, some 50 years after Malta's invasion by a marauding Ottoman armada during the fabled Great Siege, the fortifications along the Marsamxett Harbour were not strong enough to resist a large attack from advanced artillery. In 1634, a military engineer sent by Pope Urban VIII was tasked with examining the island's defences. Pietro Floriani proposed a second line of fortifications around Valletta's land front, the construction of which would lead to the creation of the San Salvatore counterguard and an array of bastions and ravelins leading up to Valletta.
Artist Joana Vasconcelos. Photo: Lionel Balteiro/LaMousse
Almost 400 years later, tourists, not soldiers, stroll beneath these mighty fortifications and their casemates, one of which is now the subject of an extensive €30m restoration and reconstruction into Malta's first ever contemporary arts museum. It is a grand investment that is no mean feat: the Malta International Contemporary Arts Space is the first build in decades designed to house the arts in Malta, where so many museums tend to be housed in the repurposed Auberges once lived in by the Knights of Malta. This one, however, is Malta's calling card in the world of contemporary art.
Cristina Iglesias’s Sea Cave (entrance) brings to the surface that which may lie underneath: imaginary opening to a subterranean space exploring hidden geologies, interconnections and the passage of time
It is a memorable time for the Maltese art scene, says the indefatigable Phyllis Muscat, who has stewarded the MICAS project from conception right to its imminent opening. "Malta is about to take a great step forward and become a proactive player in the contemporary art world," she says with confidence.
Milton Avery (right) with Boathouse By The Sea (1959)
Over the past five years, Muscat, along with the MICAS board she chairs and the Restoration Directorate, has overseen the transformation of a historic coastal fortification by the Marsamxett Harbour, into the largest iteration of Malta's cultural infrastructure. With its cavernous layout, the reclamation of what once was a derelict "brownsite" has now been restored, with its grounds now housed under a massive cantilever roof. Its outdoor spaces stretch from a long esplanade at the old Ospizio, that leads to the main building, and a sculpture garden, expected to be completed in 2026. Where soldiers once guarded these ramparts, there now stands a specially commissioned installation by renowned British contemporary artist Conrad Shawcross. Titled Beacons, the piece features a series of colourful, rotating discs mounted on stainless steel and galvanized masts, each standing 7.5 metres tall. The three discs spell out the word "Now" in the colours of the maritime flags' semaphoric code. MICAS beckons, it wants to tell the world, and clearly the people driving the project forward have been punching above their weight.
"Throughout the construction of MICAS over the last four-and-a-half years we have strengthened Malta's cultural infrastructure not simply by leading a construction project, which one might hope is a template for similar projects; but we have provided a platform for contemporary art and more importantly, for internationalisation," she says of her board, which includes the acclaimed interior designer Francis Sultana, the independent curator Dr Georgina Portelli and lawyer Claire Cassar, who chairs a peer advisory group for CEOs and business leaders. MICAS' artistic director is none other than Edith Devaney, a former curator at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and former managing director and curator for David Hockney.
In this coming together of minds, MICAS started its advocacy for contemporary art by raising public awareness on the significance of the visual arts in life, commissioning works by international names such as Ugo Rondinone, Pierre Huyge, Cristina Iglesias, Michele Oka Doner and Conrad Shawcross, as well as hosting speakers at its education conferences, to name a few, like Prof. Timothy Rub, the architect C. J. Lim or Prof. Richard Noble. "MICAS reached out to the world of art, and now we are approaching the point where MICAS will open its doors to the world," Muscat says.
Exhibition Programme 2024-2026
Indeed, as of inception, MICAS endeavoured to be proactive in starting conversations with the artists it hosted, creating a platform for artists and art lovers to meet and exchange ideas on contemporary art. Conversations on the Rock - a series of panel debates and Q&A sessions with artists - was MICAS' innovative coup, allowing the embryonic contemporary arts museum to reach out to the international art world's movers and shakers to come to Malta.
"Since then, the MICAS International Art Weekend, as well as our MICAS Conversations, have become annual gatherings for our local guests to meet and debate with some of the most influential people in the art world, who travel to Malta specifically to support MICAS' launch. We've had many generous local and international sponsors whose contributions supported these endeavours," Muscat says.
"I think MICAS' aspirations are truly high: we see art as a beacon of light in a world where humans have invited upon themselves the pressure of overgrowth, and we need artists to raise powerful questions about our contemporary world and society."
The old Ospizio complex in Floriana today is hardly recognisable from when works first started back in 2018 at this historic line of fortifications, which once hosted a gunpowder mill in the mid-1600s. The name derives from the word "hospice", having housed the first state-run institution for the elderly in the 1700s before reverting it its military purpose for British troops as Army Ordinance stores till the 1960s. Muscat, who has donned a hard hat countless times to survey the ongoing works, today sees the result of so much extensive restoration by the Restoration Directorate. "This location has truly turned out to be the perfect site to promote our brand and house the pieces of art the international programme will bring to our island," Muscat states confidently.
The space itself is a landmark: part of the coastal fortification turned into a beacon for the visual arts, funded by the ERDF and the Maltese state, it could serve as a template for similar other buildings on public land. "And it's not just the galleries," Muscat adds. "On-site residences for artists will support practitioners and their work, because... we believe in the indisputable benefits of engagement in the arts, and we want to tangibly champion contemporary art and its value to society, helping artists pose relevant questions that can lead to the positive transformation of society."
Thanks to the work of architect Norbert Gatt, and his team at the Restoration Directorate, MICAS has harnessed the heritage of this outstanding military architecture, to now be turned into a cultural bastion - a space that can engage and empower artists, but also neighbourhoods and audiences, putting the island on the global map for contemporary art lovers, while opening up new cultural and recreational spaces for communities to experience.
"We managed to conserve our tangible heritage by restoring and rehabilitating the historic footprint of the old Ospizio, repurposing a surrounding landscape that has been long out of bounds to the public, now democratised and open to all," Muscat says.
"So it is not just a physical repristinating of the fortifications, but maybe also of the cultural aspirations of the Maltese people."
MICAS was launched with its first international collaboration - the acquisition of a work by leading international artist, Ugo Rondinone, who works in stone on large-scale figures. Rondinone's The Radiant, whose material and shape resonates with the Malta's megalithic heritage, articulates this local narrative with a 21st century contemporary idiom. In dedicating his work to the children of Malta, Rondinone also worked with children from the SkolaSajf summer schools on a site-specific installation at the Milorda Garden, where the figure has been displayed to be publicly accessible. It will eventually be housed in the MICAS sculpture garden on the San Salvatore bastion's platform.
Rondinone bookmarked an illustrious roll-call of international artists whose indelible mark enriched Malta's physical spaces. In 2019 came Pierre Huyghe's Exomind (Deep Water) - made possible through close collaboration with our international partner, the Serpentine Galleries - whose kneeling statue at the Buskett Gardens marvelled visitors with its beehive head, a work nurtured within the dynamic ecology of those historic gardens, highlighting the stresses placed on the natural environment by human intervention, a matter of the highest pertinence for contemporary society.
In 2020, even within the dampened environment brought by the Covid pandemic, Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias' enchanting Sea Cave (Entrance) at Valletta's historic Hastings Gardens, was a remarkable, perceptual experience. The year after, American artist Michele Oka Doner's The Palm Goddess for Malta graced the plinth at the Royal Theatre, and now, standing at the entrance of MICAS is British artist Conrad Shawcross's The Dappled Light of the Sun (Formation I) and his MICAS: Beacons atop the bastion saluting the world to the imminent opening of MICAS.
Muscat, who says MICAS' mission is to raise public awareness of the significance of the visual arts in contemporary life, says that even throughout the last four years of construction, this vision has already been in part realised.
"MICAS connected artistic communities and wide audiences, with an international platform providing a space to discuss art and its engagement with issues that affect us all in this highly-interconnected world. We built networks, invested in international partnerships and worked hard to create inclusive programmes of events that validate contemporary art in Malta.
"We launched an educational strand that stewarded so many of our MICAS 'conversations' with luminaries from the art world, curators, collectors, museum directors and academics. We looked outwards in our dialogue with the international art community, but also embraced our neighbourhood communities; for example, in 2019, together with Esplora and the Valletta Cultural Agency, we engaged with three neighbourhood schools in Floriana and Valletta and their school management teams and educators for a series of workshops on light, colour and shadow perception.