Elements of a changing nation

To commemorate the EU's 50th anniversary, the European Commission Representation in Malta has extended its patronage to the publication of a collection of photographs by Peter Paul Barbara, showing various aspects of Malta's natural and man-made heritage.

Entitled Elements Of Change, the natural elements - earth, water, fire and air - give their names to the four sections of the publication.

Light, the primary source of energy, is the central image and resource for painters and sculptors, film and theatre directors... and photographers, Mr Barbara highlights.

Since his early childhood, he has been fascinated by the interplay of light and the way he perceives it. Thanks to his sister, he started to handle his first single-lens reflex camera when he was 15.

Throughout the last 25 years, Mr Barbara has ventured into photography and international relations in a more structured and organised way, he says.

He graduated in International Relations and specialised in European Studies at the University of Malta. In the meantime, however, he never lost sight of photography and became an associate fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and the Master Photographers Association of the UK.

At one stage in his career, he managed to amalgamate both worlds - photography and international relations - through journalism.

"As a mature student, I experienced the joy of seeing Malta become a member of the EU, this large family of nations, united in the democratic ideals of freedom, justice, peace, equality and solidarity.

"The constraints I had in my earlier life, the lack of opportunities to develop my photographic skills, together with the meagre rewards related to my profession, became a kind of obsession and made me double my efforts to achieve what I had always aspired to," Mr Barbara says.

"My dream of working abroad in photography and the constraints that a small market economy like Malta imposed on me at that time made me want to contribute, in the best way possible, to seeing Malta become part of a larger social, financial and cultural geographical space...

"During the last 25 years, I have experienced practically all the technological changes in photography...

"Over these years, I have witnessed the changing of a nation, its culture and its people. For me photography, my country and myself have come full circle," Mr Barbara says.

In his comments on the book and its theme, Joe Friggieri says Mr Barbara "calls our attention to objects and events that may have escaped our notice, or with which, on the contrary, we have become too familiar".

According to Prof. Friggieri, the book captures Malta's transition from a traditional to a modern society, even though some traditions have survived.

In organising his pictures around the four elements, Mr Barbara has succeeded - unconsciously - in establishing a symbolic link between his striking images and the principles upon which the EU was founded and the aims it is constantly trying to achieve.

The European Commission Representation in Malta was proud to offer patronage to Mr Barbara's publication on the special occasion, said its head, Joanna Drake, in her foreward to the book.

Elements Of Change offers "the opportunity to trace, through an intense photographic experience, Malta's trajectory through time".

Elements Of Change is published in a numbered, limited-edition version. It includes 280 plates in both colour and black and white, spread across 320 pages. Most copies are already sold, but a few are still available from the publishers and selected bookshops.