Senglea has become a shadow of the city it used to be. David Schembri meets Joe Scerri, who is determined to reclaim some of his city’s past glories.

A re-enactment scene from last year’s festival.

Local council events are dime a dozen nowadays. In one village the focus may be fish, in another chocolate, in another strawberries, another bread, another olive oil... While we don’t seem to get enough of these events – thousands are drawn to them week on week – one might question what lasting significance they have on their localities.

The Senglean variant – now known as the Maritime Senglea International Festival – has taken root over the past four years. With each edition, these roots have stalked deeper and deeper into the city’s history. This year, the festival is tied to a project which delves into the heart of Senglea’s 21st-century identity.

“We have decided to go beyond events; we want to revive our locality on a cultural, social and artistic level,” Joe Scerri, the festival’s director for the past four years, says. He now has another title to his name: he is project director of The Revival of Old Towns and Cities EU project, where Senglea has teamed up with Fara San Martino in Abruzzo, Italy, the Latvian city of Daugavpils, and Zarasai, in northeastern Lithuania.

These cities all have one thing in common: they were once prosperous cities whose populations were haemorrhaged during World War II.

“After the war, Senglea has shrunk in its population, its artistic treasures and its culture; it has been impoverished,” Scerri says. With this in mind, this year’s festival will be taking place in parallel with a conference tied to the project, where delegates representing each city will be discussing their locality’s experience and coming up with the way forward.

Scerri, born and bred in Senglea, notes that few Maltese come to live there, with the more grandiose buil­dings only available to the very well-heeled – including foreigners. “People here are born in a mu­seum without knowing how to ap­preciate it or being able to afford it,” Scerri says of the local population.

While the fruits of the conference might still be a long way off – the project will come back full circle to Senglea next year, after events in Latvia, Lithuania and Italy – the festival raises a fair amount of awareness on Senglea’s rich heritage while at the same time introducing more recent artistic works into the city.

One such case is sculptor Casi Privitera, who works with volcanic rock and pietra bianca from her native Sicily, whose exhibition Shhh! Silenzio will be on at La Vincitrice Band Club. Privitera and Charles Bonnici will also be giving a sculpture workshop on Saturday 14.

The festival is tied up to a project which delves into the heart of Senglea’s 21st-century identity

There will be live mural painting by Lewis Zammit on Saturday and Sunday evening, along with over 40 artists and sculptors making and selling their work in the Arts Fair on the Saturday – which Scerri, also the acting director of the Malta Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, believes distinguishes this event from the other locality-based events around Malta.

The international flavour will be provided thanks to the overseas contingents, which include a vocal group and two dance companies.

What pervades the event’s programme is the sense that the organisers want to reclaim what is Senglea’s own. The Victory Kitchen, an initiative of Senglea Archpriest Em­manuel Brincat that fed thousands in World War II, will be re-enacted on Sunday morning. In the afternoon, the programme reclaims a tradition that records show might have originated in Senglea – the ġostra – a recent picture of which has been making the rounds internationally.

Speaking to Scerri, one cannot fail to sense the passion he has for his city. “They say Senglea was the first place the ġostra was held, Isla had lots of records referring to that tradition. The carnival was organised here first, too – the city is very rich in that regard,” Scerri says.

“I feel like crying when seeing all these traditions and heritage being lost,” he says, emotion rising in his voice. The maċina – which is more known for its Labour Party connotations than for its original function as a crane – is another sore point for Scerri: “It was more beautiful than St James Cavalier – whoever built it was a first-class engineer. It was then hacked into bits as its use changed.”

Scerri confesses that because of maritime restrictions, the sea does not play as important a part of the festival as its name suggests. This does not mean it will not be used, however – the programme includes a powerboat fun run, a kayak competition and a fishing competition. There will also be open days at the Senglea Regatta club.

The city will – weather permitting – be in its full glory on the days of the festival, as it would have just celebrated its feast, which coincides with Victory Day on a national level.

This moment in history has been re-enactmented in previous editions of the festival. Senglea was the epicentre of air raids during World War II, and on the feast day, the Maria Bambina procession chang­ed into a pilgrimage of joy as news of Italy’s armistice – spelling the end of war for Malta – reached the city.

The war might have changed the face of Senglea inalterably. And while the EU project the city has embarked on might not bring past glories back, for four days in September, the masses will flock back to Senglea – for the art, history, music and food stalls.

The Maritime Senglea Festival takes place at the Senglea Waterfront between September 12 and 15.

www.maritimesenglea.com; www.revivaloldtownscities.eu