With St James Cavalier’s artist-in-residence programme going strong, Spazju Kreattiv artistic director Toni Sant gives Johnathan Cilia a look at what’s in store.

As I opened the door of the downstairs bathrooms of St James Cavalier, I could hear some men having a conversation rather clearly. Assuming I’d have to wait a bit, I walked in to join the queue. Except, there wasn’t one. Perplexed, I looked around the empty restroom, only to see a poster declaring I was in the midst of the interactive installation, Communal Thoughts by Malcolm Galea.

This was about the sixth artistic endeavour I had encountered since entering Spazju Kreattiv. There was a ceramic exhibition upstairs by Tony Briffa and a photo-graphy exhibition called The Great Book of Malta Volume One: Ħamrun, hosted by Creative Communities. There was 0605 | 0506 | 2016, put on by the MFA in Digital Arts graduates and featuring everything from stop motion to interactive fun with sound and some technically interesting, if a tad creatively boring, camera angle play.

Just a few metres away in another space, there were two exhibitions that I didn’t catch the names of – a small experiment in virtual reality tech by way of comic style graphics and a weirdly creative exhibition imagining an Arabised Malta by the year 2068, including images of a pastizzerija selling falafel and the like.

There were also a group of people rehearsing for an upcoming show running around the place, amidst digital arts students putting some of the finishing touches on their exhibitions and installations.

In the time that Toni Sant has taken the reins as artistic director of Spazju Kreattiv by way of the Fondazzjoni Kreattività, the spaces have seen a flurry of activity, with a specific person in place now who has a clear prerogative of filling the space inside St James Cavalier, the building can be put to good use once more.

And now, the team at Spazju Kreattiv have set their eyes away from these shores with their artist-in-residency programme. Having learnt from previous exchange programmes with places like New York (the US) and China, AiR hopes to offer a cultural immersion for the artist while fostering productive relationships with Maltese artists.

“We used to have a residence in Valletta for artists to live in, but the artists who came were residents on an ad-hoc basis. We didn’t have a structure in our programme. Now, we do,” says Toni Sant. “With the AiR programme we have two main goals. We hope to be able to offer a taste of the arts and culture to all non-Maltese artists. And, we hope to offer the opportunity for Maltese artists to encounter foreign artists in their own environment.”

Offers a cultural immersion for the artist while fostering productive relationships with Maltese artists

AiR is a collaboration between Fondazzjoni Kreattività and Valletta 2018 that will see an artist based in Gozo for two to three weeks between September 2016 and June 2017. All fields are accepted in the application. All that the artist-in-residence has to do is immerse him or herself in the island and reach out to and collaborate with local communities. They can be anything, from creative groups to voluntary organisations to towns and village societies. As for the local artists and communities, giving them the chance to show their work and techniques where they are based and have their resources is a good way to give a foreign artist a proper view of the artist’s skills. Different contexts would hopefully lead to some fruitful discussions through an openness to new ideas.

“It is not just about openness, even though that is important,” points out Toni. “What is really important is the point of encounter and the effects it’ll have on the artists.”

In fact, the point of encounter is a key point to the AiR programme, which is based on three points: visits, exchanges and encounters. Annually, a number of artists and creative industry professionals visit Malta on an invitation from the Fondazzjoni Kreattività and Valletta 2018 and their associates. Sometimes, this leads to being awarded a fellowship, which leads to long term working relationships between the Maltese communities and the foreign artists.

Through this membership they then take advantage of the extensive collaboration agreements that Fondazzjoni Kreattività and Valletta 2018 have with international cultural entities. Working with Fondazzjoni Kreattività and Valletta 2018 would allow them to use the spaces they have and even host their own encounters between Maltese artists and other creatives from around the world.

As for the programme the artist will follow here, Toni keeps it simple: “We have a straightforward process – we invite artists themselves to propose a series of activities while they are in Malta.”

Maltese-Australian artist Danielle Asciak was the first AiR recipient. She ended up performing her cabaret show, Everyone Wants A Piece of Malta!, at local venues in Gozo. This was in collaboration with New South Wales Government in Australia and gave some Gozitans a look at how the first (of soon to be many) artists will be reacting to living in Gozo and working with Maltese communities.

“We want to do artistic ventures for their social sake,” says Toni. “Through the visit and exchanges we encourage encounters that allow this. We don’t want artists to come here or go abroad and just sit there contemplating their art, but instead we want them to have a new encounter that leads to explanations and creating meaningful working relationships. That doesn’t excite me as much as someone who explains his/her technique to someone else, who also explains his/her technique in return and from that conversation they create something new.”

With previous exchange programmes having problems with travel expenses, unstructured timeframes and unclear priorities, Fondazzjoni Kreattività and Valletta 2018’s new AiR programme aim to take things up a notch in terms of consistency and long term vision.

“Right now in the EU, Malta is a leader in artist-in-residency programmes. We have proposed a model of good practice to all other member states with this new programme,” says Toni proudly.

With applications now open, the public spaces inside St James Cavalier, possibly including the restrooms and public spaces all over Malta can soon be filled with more exhibitions that result from this cultural immersion, an immersion that can only add to the diversity of Malta’s creative scene.