Raphael Vella and Bettina Hutschek will be the two artist-curators for the Malta Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale, being held between May 13 and November 26.

With their concept Homo Melitensis: An incomplete inventory in 19 chapters, the two artist-curators will present the Malta Pavilion as a poetic compilation of unique things that supposedly define the imaginary of the Maltese identity.

The exhibition will be designed in collaboration with an architectural team led by Tom Van Malderen (Architecture Project). A transmedia story world developed in collaboration with Stefan Kolgen will augment Homo Melitensis by creating an interactive and expanding online fictional space that communicates with, yet also transcends, the physical exhibition space in Venice.

Bettina Hutschek is a visual artist, filmmaker and curator who lives and works between Malta and Berlin. Raphael Vella is an artist, curator and educator based in Malta. Both have extensive curatorial and artistic experience and have exhibited their work internationally. 

Next year’s Malta Pavilion will see Malta officially returning to the Venice Art Biennale after an absence of 17 years. It has so far participated with a special exhibition of Maltese Artists in 1958 and a National Pavilion in 1999.

Malta’s Pavilion at the Venice Biennale is one of the 70 actions which is being implemented as part of Strategy2020, Arts Council Malta’s five-year strategy for the cultural and creative sectors. It also formed part of government’s electoral programme.

The declared aim of the Malta Pavilion is to offer a platform through which Maltese contemporary artistic practices understood within the broadest sense of the term can be exposed, contextualised and presented to an international audience.

The Maltese Pavilion will also form part of the Cultural programme of the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2017. The project will also bridge with the contemporary art programme of Valletta as European Capital of Culture in 2018.