I once started a project of buying postcards of Malta and then going on location to photograph the unseen bits, so to say. I would go to Golden Bay and turn the camera slightly to the right to shoot the car park, for example, or use a telephoto rather than a wide-angle lens to bring out the detail of mattresses and fridges lying around at Chadwick Lakes.

The idea was to eventually put up a little exhibition of alternative postcards. I would call it ‘What the other half looks like’ and it would serve as a reminder of the falsity of tourist fodder and the real state of the environment.

Much to the Malta Tourism Authority’s distress, it turned out my photographic talent didn’t quite match my enthusiasm and the whole thing fell by the wayside.

Or maybe it didn’t. In fact my cunning plan seems to have been picked up with considerable gusto, only in reverse.

The project has been re-christened ‘artists’ impressions’ and its results make the news every other day. There is now more impressionism in a sheet of local newsprint than at the entire Gare d’Orsay.

Recent offerings include the ‘revamped’ Castille Place, the floating islands and the main square at Paola. Since I’ve already written an ode to the aesthetic and functional brilliance of the first, I shall concentrate on the other two.

St Thomas Bay is the grubbiest, most wretched hole imaginable

First, the floating islands. Apparently, the idea is to moor huge pontoon-like structures at Marsalforn and St Thomas Bay that will serve as havens for swimmers. What with a real archipelago and now floating islands, one wonders if Laputa-style flying ones are next. But never mind, the topic is artists’ impressions.

Take St Thomas Bay. We were presented with an image of a white-and-yellow platform populated by distinctly-fruity young women and athletic men in Speedos. There’s also a RHIB moored along one side and a quaint kiosk in the middle which is presumably fully stocked with locally-sourced organic options. The sea around this dollop of heaven is very blue and very very empty.

Which is funny, because the St Thomas Bay, I know, is rather different. I happen to be well-acquainted with the place. I usually park my car there to go walking at Munxar and I also occasionally swim in the bay when the sea elsewhere is too stormy.

The artist’s impression leaves out a number of things. The hideous stacks of beach rooms known as boathouses are nowhere to be seen. Nor is the daily dumping of construction waste directly onto what’s left of the beach, or the mountains of rubbish deposited at will on every free inch of shore.

I also couldn’t make out the huge tuna pens that have been lying about for at least a month. Every morning, fish-farm workers proceed to repair the structures and to leave behind a trail of black plastic shavings. And that’s not even going anywhere near the heavy machinery and containers they’ve moved in.

The upshot is that St Thomas Bay is the grubbiest, most wretched hole imaginable. Which makes the artist’s impression seem rather like the murals of national happiness found in North Korean tube stations. In other words, false.

There’s another thing. The impressions, and the islands themselves, are a kind of perverse lateral thinking. They tell me that whoever is in charge has so completely given up on the real thing known as St Thomas Bay that they’ve taken to creating simulacra. Like the last Dodos, they’ve retreated to a tiny island.

On to a more metaphorical kind of island. Not happy with the conventional static kind, the artists charged with showing us the about-to-arrive square in Paola gave us an animated impression. And what a sight it is.

The animation uses a wide-angle perspective that makes the place look as vast as the Mongolian steppes. There are fountains and water jets everywhere, and more trees in blossom than there are in Hiroshige at his most optimistic.

The smartly-dressed people in the animation aren’t enjoying any of it, but that’s only because they appear to be reading or lost deep in philosophical dialogue.

It’s as fantastical and false as the floating islands. The artist’s impression presents us with an image of our environment which is completely out of touch with reality.

For example, one of the people shown in the animation is a wheelchair user. Presumably, that shows how inclusive and accessible the place will be, and I should be churlish to argue with that. My only problem is, I really can’t figure out how that person got to the square in the first place.

That’s because Malta, Paola included, is a nightmare for wheelchair users. There isn’t a single pavement in the country that isn’t butchered in such a way as to make it completely inaccessible to them. Thus my point about ‘the rest of it’ about the real Malta beyond the artists’ impressions.

The other thing about the Paola animation is that there are very few cars around. One or two people are leaning on their bicycles and the rest seem happy enough to walk. Problem is, it takes more than a million acres of concrete and a few shrubs and water features to create pedestrian nirvana. No matter, the impressionists seem happy enough to send postcards to themselves.

Readers will be familiar with the phenomenon of young people who retreat into the world of video games and lose all touch with reality. Japan has more than its fair share of these reclusive hikikomori and that’s not usually considered a good thing. I don’t see why it should be any better for us to retreat into the world of artists’ impressions.

mafalzon@hotmail.com