How do we belong? Who makes the decisions and what are they based on?

A new exhibition explores themes and players involved in space appropriation on the Maltese islands, with its long colonial past and its historical and current deviations. Debatable Land(s) is an experimental installation set up at Kunsthalle Exnergasse (KEX) in Vienna, Austria, until November 27.

This is the first phase of a year-long process, proposing a body of research that leads up to performative debates as well as a final exhibition in the framework of the Fleeting Territories series by Grammar of Urgencies, this time in collaboration with Margerita Pulè/Unfinished Art Space and Greta Muscat Azzopardi.

The borrowed term ‘debatable land’ originally referred to a piece of land between Scotland and England where sovereignty was in question; this land and its borders were intangible for centuries, until a map of the territory was drawn, and it became a ‘knowable place’. Lines-on-a-map as a result of claims of belonging, are themselves not free of ambiguities.

In the search for generative concepts of belonging – which reflect on the texture of how it is felt, used and practised – Malta is taken as a case study. With its land, sea, underwater and aerial borders, the island of Malta serves Debatable Land(s) as a mirror of the many chronicles of power plays, migration, exploitation and the instinct for self-preservation. In particular, the emotional aspects of belonging and how it is enacted by myriad humans and more-than-humans are considered. Belonging is understood as emergent co-becoming, which may allow for new, emotional geographies that are simultaneously caring and careful.

The Debatable Land(s) research is structured as a series of questions, that form the basis of performative debates, which will take place in Malta in 2021. Along with materials displayed in nine, loosely-formed chapters, the following artists and collaborators were invited to contribute to this experiment at KEX: Mohamed Ali ‘Dali’ Agrebi, Keit Bonnici, Antoine Cassar, Charlie Cauchi, Charlene Galea, Roxman Gatt, Jimmy Grima and the Rubberbodies Collective – Bettina Hutschek, Magna Żmien, Letta Shtohryn, Guy Woueté, Chakib Zidi and Tobias Zielony.

Performative debates will take place in Malta in April and the final exhibition in September-October 2021. The project is supported by Arts Council Malta and can be followed on Fleeting Territories on Facebook.

Island Girls (detail) by Charlene Galea. 2020. Photographic prints. Photo: courtesy of the artist and Fleeting Territories

Charlene Galea explores gender constructs as part of her female identity. Employing her body as both instrument and subject, she navigates between online identity and physical experience, presenting the lived-in female body in contemporary times. The series Island Girls (2020) places women in surreal locations, and reflects upon the dystopian aspects of the #IslandGirls hashtag in conflict with the supposed tropical paradise it seeks to evoke.

#IslandGirls on Instagram typically displays bikini-clad female bodies in tempting poses on exotic beaches. Here, however, the female body becomes an empowered and autonomous political body, conscious of its environment and in command of its actions.

Is It Easier to Get an Honest Reply from Her or Win the Lottery? by Keit Bonnici. 2020. Printed postcards. Photo: courtesy of the artist and Fleeting TerritorieS

Absurdity is Keit Bonnici’s filter on Malta’s history: Is It Easier to Get an Honest Reply from Her or Win the Lottery? (2020) is a postcard project that attempts to reconfigure thinking around identity, icons and history.

While the world has recently insisted upon the removal of monuments to colonisers and slavers, Malta held its own half-hearted discussion on the presence of a large statue of Queen Victoria in Valletta.

The monument has remained in place – however, the artist sent a carefully made postcard to Queen Elizabeth II, asking her how she feels about the debate surrounding the statue of her great-great-great-grandmother. Although the postcard was sent in July 2020, he has yet to receive a reply.

Ħanina by Charlie Cauchi. 2018. Single channel HD video installation. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Charlie Cauchi, a documentary film-maker, who herself grew up in the Maltese diaspora of the UK, has worked extensively in recent years on chronicling the stories of Maltese migrant communities abroad, attempting to distil the complex topic of Maltese migration to countries such as the USA, Canada, or Tunisia.

Her work, Ħanina (2018), roughly translated as ‘kind’, brought her to Tunisia, where throughout the 19th and 20th centuries many Maltese chose – or were forced – to make a life for themselves.

Ezzahra is an industrial town, with a palpable similarity to Malta in its signage, colours and vernacular architecture. Today, the Maltese migrant worker community has all but disappeared, but the exchange of labour remains. At Bortex’s Ezzahra factory, the Maltese firm produces their Gagliardi suiting line, employing a skilled Tunisian workforce to produce fine Maltese tailoring – an operation captured between glimpses of landscape and the world beyond the factory.