For the Maltese among us, an art exhibition titled Tnessid makes one think of an archaic noun, making one delve into one’s knowledge of the Maltese language in a bid to somehow decipher its meaning. However, as indicated in the exhibition’s mission statement, it is a word that the five artists, Marvic Camilleri, Ramona Borg, Kristov Scicluna, Elena Said and Aaron Sammut, have coined by using the inverse of the word ‘dissent’, defined as “a strong difference of opinion on a particular subject, especially about an official suggestion or plan or a popular belief”.

These different perspectives from these artists, following their Master of Fine Arts in Digital Arts at the Department of Digital Arts at the University of Malta, under the direction of the course leader Prof. Vince Briffa, are brought together in this exhibition at Spazju Kreattiv. The five artists offer alternative perspectives to commonly held views that are aesthetically linked together through a curation that effectively does so. The media used by the five artists includes sculpture, drawing, installation and sound, reflecting the multidisciplinary, conceptual nature of the whole enterprise.

Sensing the Unseen by Ramona Borg

Holding a degree in art education and having a background in the visual arts, Ramona Borg regards art as a communicative channel that promotes expression, and through which, social issues can be investigated and presented to the public. Sensing the Unseen, a mixed-media installation, depicts humans as vessels, through a combination of feelings, moods, experiences, narratives, encounters and conversations with various people, brought together to create a visual and atmospheric experience.

'Ariadne’s Thread' by Marvic Camilleri

Having returned to Malta after living away from these shores for a number of years in order to pursue a career in the visual arts, multidisciplinary artist Marvic Camilleri’s pieces are related to her profession as a graphic designer that entails working on creative concepts.

It is a word that the five artists, Marvic Camilleri, Ramona Borg, Kristof Scicluna, Elena Said and Aaron Sammut, have coined by using the inverse of the word ‘dissent’

She uses mundane, everyday objects to explore the hidden layers of traces left by human emotions and her own experiences. Her piece, Ariadne’s Thread, is a conceptual project that deals with the theme of loss and memories. It is about creating a space where memories from the past connect with the present.

'Mapping the Differences' by Aaron Sammut

Aaron Sammut explores many themes, aided by his multimedia experi­ments through his use of both traditional and digital media. This knowledge allows him to express himself in different ways, a pursuit that makes him meditate and rationalise life stressors. Inspired by David Hockney’s photo collages, Sammut presents Mapping the Differences, which is a collage of images scavenged from the internet, generated using AI, or shot by the artist himself that maps out the birthplace of the artist ‒ the town of Gżira.

'DIN l-Art Ħelwa' by Elena Said

Elena Said is mainly preoccupied with the message in the work and does not hesitate to exploit disturbing and unorthodox methods in her quest to express this, rather than focusing on the aesthetics of the finished product. Inspired by the Dadaists, Said’s preferred launchpad is creative computation in which art and technology intersect. Through her work, she invites the viewers to search for their personal idea of beauty. Her piece, titled DIN l-Art Ħelwa, encompassing images collected over a six-month period and reflecting a measure of paro­dy, is interdisciplinary and is, in the artist’s words, “an exploration of how data can be translated into different mediums to increase effectiveness and encourage reflection” by using object-detection technology.

For Kristov Scicluna, as for Borg, art is a channel for self-expression and communication. An introspective exploration into the root of emotion is what his work is about, and which allows him to be in syntony with himself. He intuitively promotes and transfers these feelings to the viewers who will experience such emotions in their own way. The composition he creates, in which elements of fantasy and darkness seep in, invite the viewers to participate emotively. The artist makes use of stop-motion hand-drawn animated vignettes in his piece The Void of The Thunderhag, which draws on an eerie Scottish myth. The jumpy nature of the medium itself creates a disturbing nature which amplifies the narrative being projected.

TNESSID, hosted at Spazju Kreattiv from June 2 to July 2, also includes works by a group of MA students in Digital Arts from the University of Greenwich, London.