Alex Attard was born into a family of photographers but it was only a few years ago that he restarted his passion for photography from ‘casual’ to something more serious. The result? After a hiatus of over 25 years, he quickly became sought after, renowned for his unique approach that combines his creativity as an artist with his love for architecture.
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It was this renewed zest for the art that led Alex to his latest project, Parallel Existences – an alternative through-the-lens look at damaged manuscripts that lie within the Crying Room at the often-overlooked Notarial Archives in Valletta – a destination he discovered when its curator and founder of its foundation, Joan Abela, invited him in the hope of inspiring artists through the Archives.
“Whenever I start working on a new project, it is vital for me to connect with my subject – I often describe it as building a relationship. This time, the relationship was forged between me, the Archives and everything within them. I wanted to go over the volumes of manuscripts there that hold centuries of history; to observe the people who work with these documents and to absorb the whole ambience of the place. I spent days on end roaming around at different times, taking quick snapshots of anything that caught my eye.”
I spent days on end in the Archives, roaming around at different times, taking quick snapshots of anything that caught my eye
Alex says the defining moment came when he discovered a box of documents that had suffered considerable damage during World War II. Buried deep within this box was a severely bruised 17th-century volume that didn’t look anything like a text at all. Split in half by the blast that destroyed it, its pages had fused into a solid block of paper.
“From this fascinating sight it dawned on me – here was my concept,” he says. “It brought to mind something I’d read: ‘When something is damaged beyond its useful life, our way of looking at it or using it dies with it. But this does not mean that there is no other way to look at it. If we change the way we look at things, the essence of beauty may be found in the considered gone.” (author unknown). And so, this project came to be about the ‘considered gone’.”
The result – striking black-and-white photography of these fragments of paper – looks at the Archives as a space where the synergies of the past encounter those of the present to reveal and inspire different avenues of creativity and perception. As Alex puts it, the exhibition further emphasises that photography is not just a documentary voice and an artistic expression, but can also be an active participant alongside history.
And on top of that, Alex’s photography is now also at the heart of the book Parallel Existences. The Notarial Archives: A Photographer’s Inspiration published by Kite Group. In this publication – edited by Joan Abela and Emanuel Buttigieg – photography, art and history interlace to weave a new tapestry held together by a common thread: the ‘fragments’ found within the Archives.
“I hope to have given these manuscripts a new identity,” he says. “And that these images will evoke emotion in their viewers, encouraging them to question the evidential value of what they are looking at. I hope it will draw attention to the Archives as under-appreciated guardians of national wealth and to ignite critical discourse and awareness,” he says.
Parallel Existences is open at Valletta Contemporary, East Street, Valletta until November 3. Open Tuesday to Saturday from 11am to 7pm (Sunday and Monday closed). The project is supported by Arts Council Malta – Malta Arts Fund.