An upcoming exhibition of textile and mixed media installations by Sarah Portelli, known in the art world under the moniker is-Sinjurina, attempts to address the cultural conditions spurring contemporary relationships. Lara Zammit speaks to the artist about her exhibition.

The upcoming art project Byronic Heroin seeks to explore the lifespan of a contemporary relationship through the use of textiles, poetry and mixed media.

With items reminiscent of weddings and relationships sprawled across the walls of a traditional Maltese terran in Qormi, the temporal make-up of relationships and the socio-cultural baggage argued to be conditioning us in the direction of marriage is on full display.

Artist Sarah Portelli, is-Sinjurina, spoke to Times of Malta about how the exhibition seeks to comment on the cultural aspiration towards marriage and its ramifications in the world of dating.

Textiles and fabrics reminiscent of weddings are sprawled across the walls.

“The exhibition seeks to question the rele­vance of these traditional, oftentimes heteronormative rituals,” said Portelli.

“When growing up, we are oftentimes taught to exalt the over-romanticised aspects of the traditional relationship, with things such as wedding ceremonies afforded an almost preternatural veneration. Traditional media like literature and film combined with the rise of reality TV has morphed the concept of marriage (and fairy tale weddings in particular) into aspirational goals far removed from the intimacy of a loving relationship.

“Consciously or subconsciously, this collective obsession ends up influencing our romantic ideals, coercing us into partaking in or (at the very least aspiring for) society’s collective fascination with the grand romantic gestures often portrayed as the norm in film and TV.”

The exhibition is therefore not critical of marriage per se, but rather of the mindlessness lack of attention with which some of us approach it. It is a critique of those who are more concerned with the reception than the wedding ceremony, and more interested in the wedding than the marriage.

This can be seen in the exhibition’s title. The intentional play on the homophone ‘heroin/e’ may be an underhanded way of saying that Hollywood-inspired fabrications of marriage are a kind of “opium of the people”. Portelli said that this play on words is “intended to reference the addictive nature of toxic relationships as well as society’s collective obsession with wedding culture”.  

Poetry serves as extensions of the artworks.

A notable feature of the exhibition is the inclusion of poetry along its walls, reverberating with themes of longing, disappointment and time, or some combination thereof. The textiles seem to be stitched together from smaller fabrics, perhaps reminiscent of the fragmentation characterising some relationships and our ideas of marriage, but which nevertheless make up a cohesive item.

Commenting on how she harmonised poe­try and textiles in the project, Portelli said they were created simultaneously.

“The poetry and artworks were created in tandem with each other. I decided to include the poems alongside the artworks so as to further help the viewer visualise and interpret the message of the exhibition. In a way, I wanted to use these poems to serve as both extensions of the artworks on display as well as a sort of alternative to the typical curator’s notes one usually finds accompanying artworks at exhibitions,” she explained.

The exhibition is taking place in a traditional Maltese terran.

The exhibition is presented in a traditional Maltese terran with a storied past. Asked how significant this setting is within the context of the exhibition and whether or not this environment conditions or affects the character of the works in any way, Portelli replied that the building had a role to play in how the exhibition materialised. 

“In a way, the building itself dictated the layout of the artworks on display. Some of these installations are site specific in nature, having been designed to specifically fit the space. The floor plan of the terran, with rooms bleeding into one another, also serves to reflect the progression of the relationship from our earliest childhood fantasies to teen romances and the heartbreak and self-discoveries that follow.”

Byronic Heroin is running from August 9 to 14 at a building in St Sebastian Street, Qormi. On August 13 at 4pm, two pieces will be performed by Charlene Galea and Sarah Portelli to further complement the exhibition.