Malta: Land of Sea
exhibition catalogue, Sandro Debono (ed.) (2nd edition; Sta Venera: Midsea Books, 2020.
For the past several years, we have been drifting away from the physical realities and ambiguous implications of what it means to live on an island: from isolation to strategic location; from that instinctive drive to protect and contain, to the innocent and naïve-like reception of the foreigner; from the comfort and security of the familiar limit to the frustration of confinement…
The island’s meaning eludes us; our identity as islanders is all but a tiny pebble in the endless stream of our becoming. But, by some misfire, we have been once again afforded – even if briefly – the opportunity to experience Malta’s unalterable physical reality as an island; its air and seaports are temporarily closed, leaving a much more concentrated group of Maltese ‘huddled’ in the middle, trying to make sense of it all and, in some ways, rediscovering that once submerged insularity.
It is precisely at the dawn of this context that the second edition of the Malta: Land of Sea catalogue was published. The timing, perhaps, could hardly be more apt. And yet, three years have elapsed since the exhibition – carrying the same name and complemented by the first edition of this publication – was set up at BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, on the occasion of the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union. By Sandro Debono’s own admission, as curator and editor, “the second edition only has minor differences in layout and content in comparison to the original exhibition catalogue.” Yet, to refer to this publication merely as a catalogue is – in my view – to downplay its scope.
Much like its greyed-out images – a vivid monochromatic vision or, rather, déjà vu – it is more concerned about what to make of that memory than it is about the ‘memorialisation’ of those works.
Printed entirely in black and white, save for the cover, it seems to acknowledge that no image, no photograph, no concept design or written walkthrough could ever render justice to the physical, sensorial, emotional, imaginative and intellectual stimuli of an exhibition whose narrative and meaning are subjected to precisely such unquantifiable human and personal reactions.
This book is not an attempt to transmit that experience through another form, nor does it seek to fix a memory, that is to preserve some memory that promises as much life as a taxidermist’s workbench. Instead, and in the spirit of the exhibition itself, it rather seems geared to inform, propose, suggest and inspire.
Like an echo or shadow of the exhibition, this revised edition would rather see itself as the ‘footprint’ left by the exhibition – that marking in fertile soil, in fresh cement
A catalogue, by definition, provides a permanent record, without suggesting what might be or without calling upon the imagination of the viewer. A catalogue, in its most basic form, is a ‘memorial’ one buys at the exit of an exhibition, as a token of that encounter with an artwork or collection of works. In this regard, it is less forward-looking.
Rather than restricting itself to something like an echo or shadow of the exhibition, this revised edition would rather see itself as the ‘footprint’ left by the exhibition – that marking in fertile soil, in fresh cement. And like the petrified impression left behind, it suggests some form of direction.
As the German poet and philosopher Friedrich von Schlegel puts it: “The historian is a prophet looking backwards.”
The idea of the catalogue, thus, is here pushed slightly further: as a practical document for other curators and researchers that can, on one end, supplement the exhibition, while, on the other, encourage informed discourse around it and future projects.
“I live in the hope that this publication can contribute towards this ambitious direction,” writes Sandro Debono in his introductory comment, “which is also about revisiting our past through the lens of the contemporary and looking at the now into the future.”
Naturally, our past gains a certain clarity in hindsight, and so does the Malta - Land of Sea exhibition by means of this publication. Barring the President of Malta’s address and the foreword by renowned worldwide historian Professor David Abulafia, the greatest addition to the publication is indeed, where the exhibition itself is concerned.
Photographic documentation of the exhibition is often left out from exhibition catalogues for practical reasons. Yet, since the exhibition relied heavily on the relations between artefacts and how they were displayed, these ‘contextualising’ photographs are a welcome, if not necessary, addition.
Furthermore, they also record the contemporary installations assembled on site, not as mere art objects but as works created for a precise location and with a particular intent that was altogether lost once the exhibition was dismantled.
It is this element of impermanence, too, which perhaps necessitated the need to provide a detailed breakdown of the physical set-up of the exhibition, from its initial conceptual phase on paper to the finalised and constructed design.
Yet all this presents a risk: the deterioration into a static and uninspired walkthrough of the layout and works of the exhibition.
The several researched essays, that were also published in the first edition, serve to counter this too, providing an additional and wide backdrop to the catalogue of works. Furthermore, the nine ‘chapters’ over which the exhibition was spread out, have here been introduced in the catalogue section of the publication, grouping up the clusters of curious objects and artworks, and thus clarifying the relations and associations between the displayed artefacts and the narrative that the exhibition sought to present to the public.
The audience, now, is the reader, but the objective is of the same mantle. Much like in the exhibition, the content is an unimposing interpretative aid at the service of the perceptive reader who attempts to piece together chapters of our Island’s history, in preparation for the next.