An exhibition of contemporary art by young Maltese artist Emanuel Bonnici was recently inaugurated at the Maltese Embassy in Paris.

Titled Métamorphoses, this is the first in a series of contemporary exhibitions planned to take place at the new Maltese embassy in Rue d’Artois.

Bonnici’s works will strike a chord with those who hold Maltese culture at heart. Meditating on issues of culture and identity, the work presented at this exhibition is a series of playful juxtapositions of Maltese iconic imagery: the knight’s sentry box, gardjola, is fused with a 20th-century symbol of British communication – a red telephone box.

The Neolithic statue of the goddess of fertility is fused with a hamburger, metaphorically used as a symbol of the ‘McDonaldisation’ of contemporary life. A number of works presented in this exhibition also reflect upon the influence of religion in Maltese culture and society.

Simultaneously an iconoclast and iconophilist, Bonnici’s embrace of the mediating power of the image is directed at those images that have mediated power in the West most effectively for centuries: the icon of the Madonna in the exhibition is presented built from tiny Lego bricks; little boys dressed up for their First Holy Communion are substitutes to a one-sided football team in a table soccer game.

Bonnici’s remodelling of the familiar activates the potential to think differently about how we respond to the persuasiveness of what we see.

This unpredictable code blending offers the viewers a means to question the falsity of prescribed identities and cultural habits.

This exhibition is curated by Raphael Vella, senior lecturer at the University of Malta, and runs until next Sunday. Any Maltese who happen to be in Paris during the exhibition are welcome to visit.

More information and directions on how to reach the Maltese Embassy in Paris can be found on www.foreign.gov.mt/france.