Four Maltese are among 28 artists across multiple disciplines taking part in an international group exhibition in New York. They are Mariella Cassar-Cordina, Tricia Dawn Williams, Aaron Bezzina and Alex Camilleri.

Un/mute is the culmination of an 18-month-long project that was launched in 2020 to provide European and NYC-based artists an opportunity for critical exchange and collaboration during the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Curated by Daina Mattis and Melinda Wang, the exhibition is the physical manifestation of online conversations among the artists, who were initially strangers but then became collaborators. 

Un/mute provided 28 artists with an opportunity for critical exchange and collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What began as abstract, ephemeral and digital are now 14 tactile, analog and concrete artworks presented in two locations in the US city: the Austrian Cultural Forum New York and the art space Undercurrent.

The artists confronted the parameters imposed by the lockdowns and each team found creative solutions. The common thread that runs through the sculptures, installations, films, drawings, photographs and performances is the importance of language. 

Cultures and countries apart, the artists endeavoured to find a bridge across two points in (virtual) space through the ephemeral Zoom link. What they also discovered were empathy from a fellow artist, discussions that sparked new ideas, a shared language around the creative process and a rethinking of the power of art. 

With cities’ reopening, a recontextualised focus on systemic racism and xenophobia, and a collective experience of 18 months of self-reflection, un/mute observes the transition into a new epoch – one that imagines an inclusive and diverse ecosystem. 

The four local participating artists are collaborating with foreign artists as the following descriptions of their artworks explain.

Sheet music used for Sonos Civitatem MMXX.

Mariella Cassar-Cordina and Tricia Dawn Williams and Nicola Ginzel (Austria)

Sonos Civitatem MMXX

Composer Mariella Cassar-Cordina and mixed-media installation artist Nicola Ginzel explore the physicality of their respective mediums in their artistic practices. 

Sonos Civitatem MMXX is a collaborative film that brings together Ginzel’s ‘frottage’ works and Cassar-Cordina’s textured musical language. 

Frottage is a process of rubbing — an intimate interaction between surface, paper and artist where the sense of touch reports and gives agency to sight. 

Just as Cassar-Cordina’s recorded sounds are created in an untraditional pianist manner, so are many of Ginzel’s rubbings. Cassar-Cordina uses loose strings to physically rub the stationary piano strings inside the grand piano’s body and includes pre-recorded sounds of Maltese soundscapes and Ginzel’s motivational utterances, while many of Ginzel’s frottages originate from her own technique of hand stitching “everyday ephemera” with thread. 

The piece is an organic dialogue via Zoom. The artists investigate how to communicate the tactile into the ephemeral Sonos Civitatem MMXX and then into a mediated piece that harkens back to the analog and concrete. 

Aaron Bezzina’s and Kyle Hittmeier’s Double Catapult and Andromeda.

Aaron Bezzina and Kyle Hittmeier (New York)

Double Catapult and Andromeda

The sculptural works of Aaron Bezzina and Kyle Hittmeier create a space of rehabilitation, seizing humour, duality and time. Ironically, these medieval, warlike sculptures of a double catapult and digitally rendered flags germinated from conversations about space and post-intimacy. 

Made from readily available lumber and fasteners, the hand-built, primitive catapult opposes another one, where two individuals can sit, face to face – eye to eye. 

Modelled virtually, the artists chose only to include the animation of the digital flags, waving in the air, acting as identifiers to the projectiles and simultaneously breathing life into the inanimate catapult. 

“A catapult is not a firearm, it does not need gunpowder or other propellants and rather uses potential energy. 

This physical stored tension parallels the virtual; we launch Zoom meetings hurling ourselves into the virtual/online abyss where much of our identities are swallowed up,” the artists note.

“The absurdity of launching our physical bodies acts as a vanitas, reminding us of our impending mortality, while appropriately allowing us a much-needed slapstick chuckle when imagining our bodies projecting through infinity.”

Alex Camilleri and Terttu Uibopuu’s 76% Humidity, Chance of Rain

Alex Camilleri and Terttu Uibopuu (Estonia) 

76% Humidity, Chance of Rain

From a shared love of documentary film and photo, Alex Camilleri and Terttu Uibopuu present 76% Humidity, Chance of Rain, a film that celebrates the beauty in our daily lives. The rustle of flags, walking down the street with a loved one, a child blowing bubbles, the delicious anticipation of waiting for takeout – all are examples of the small moments one perhaps once took for granted. The film is a co-authored poem of observational videos, “a city symphony”.

“Utilising a two-channel format and connected through sound, the images are in dialogue, then in conflict; they sync, then one takes over; they clash, then harmonise,” the artists say.

The film is both an example of and a metaphor for the process of collaboration. Through the artists’ shared visual language, they create a bridge between cultures, spoken languages, artistic mediums and physical space. 

Un/mute is running at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York and Undercurrent, in Brooklyn, New York until January. The exhibition is organised by EUNIC, European Union National Institutes for Culture, in collaboration with Undercurrent NY. Arts Council Malta is a member of EUNIC.

For more information about this project, visit www.unmute.nyc.

The Undercurrent art space in Brooklyn, New York.