The inaugural exhibition at the new Malta International Contemporary Art Space (MICAS), Transcending The Domestic, presents work by Joana Vasconcelos, one of Portugal’s most celebrated contemporary artists.

Vasconcelos was the youngest artist and first woman to exhibit at Versailles, drawing in a record 1.6 million visitors in 2012. It’s a privilege, therefore, to be able to see several of her giant signature installations and other works here in Malta.

These include a vast colourful fabric octopus-like form, Valkyrie Mumbet, which hangs overhead as you enter the gallery. This breathtakingly exuberant and surreal installation was named for both the Valkyries, powerful female warriors from Norse mythology, and Elizabeth ‘Mumbet’ Freeman, an enslaved African-American woman whose court battle in 1781 helped make slavery illegal in Massachusetts. 

The sprawling Valkyrie Mumbet. Photo: MICAS

The work is a complex and ambitious creation that, while massive in scale and equally imposing, is a world apart from the hard stone and rigid lines of monumental sculpture as it has been traditionally understood.

A fantastical, sprawling, abstracted creature stretching from a supersize core, Valkyrie Mumbet’s organic curves bring to mind those of the Goddess of Ġgantija. Valkyrie Mumbet reaches across the space with the fêted magnificence of Joseph’s Technicolour Dreamcoat. She is friendly and appealing, and yet without face or familiar form, she is also alien.

Created with artisanal textile techniques, everyday fabrics and exquisite details on a massive scale, Valkyrie Mumbet sits unexpectedly yet unashamedly at the heart of contemporary art and serves as an extraordinary commentary on culture, past and present. Like a 3D supersize American quilt, she tells a tale of female tradition, experiences of grandmothers, mothers and daughters, memories, resilience and cultural heritage. It draws you in, and brings to mind Edward Lear’s 1882 nonsense poem The Quangle Wange’s Hat.

Vasconcelos’s works investigate layers of meaning. Photo: Esther Lafferty

And just as The Quangle Wangle Quee sat at the top of the Trumpetty Tree, beneath Valkyrie Mumbet’s stretching extremities, an extraordinary 13-metre-tall Tree of Life rises from the foot of the bastion far below. From above the canopy, visitors descend alongside 110,000 leaves made from recycled fabrics in a palette of rich browns, reds, oranges and golds.

The largest and most ambitious of Vasconcelos’s works to date, Tree of Life is a response to the classical myth in which the nymph Daphne escapes Apollo’s amorous advances by transforming herself into a tree.  Retelling the tale as a celebratory story of independence and self-determination, the Tree of Life offers protection and everlasting life. Its message chimes perfectly with the narrative of this inaugural show at MICAS, the domestic and the transcendental.

As its strong roots wend across the gallery floor, dominating the space, visitors have to navigate their way around them like small characters in a story. This both reminds us of our small-scale existence in the higher scheme of things, and of the mystery of the mycorrhizal network through which trees have been shown to communicate with one another, perhaps reminiscent of the enduring strength of women’s friendships. 

Other works, in a collection of pieces called The Domestic, investigate layers of meaning in items that are functional and familiar. The Loft is a deconstructed set of household rooms where elements of a kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedrooms are subverted with strange shapes and playful objects.

The artist uses everyday fabrics in the creation of her pieces. Photo: Esther Lafferty

This experimental reimagining of an architectural framework, in which tentacles emerge from protective walls, brings a feeling of unease, challenges our everyday spatial perceptions, and serves as a metaphor for those who feel unnaturally constrained by rigid societal boundaries.

As familiar rooms are taken over by the bright, bolshie and the bonkers – bedspreads, brooches and beanbags reconfigured into unsettling shapes and forms – are we being lured into a false sense of security by the appealing softness of fun fabrics?

There’s an apparent clash here of childhood and adulthood, evoking the questions why do characterful youngsters have to grow up and conform to the norm, and wouldn’t the fabric of life be more colourful and interesting if there were fewer cultural constraints?

Vasconcelos’s giant experimental works continue to challenge traditional constraints with artful aplomb. This extraordinary exhibition is monumental, mind-bending and magical for all ages and does the new MICAS building proud.

The exhibition runs until March 27 at MICAS, Ospizio Complex, Bieb il-Pulverista, Triq Joseph J. Mangion, Floriana. Admission is €10.