The Valletta International Visual Arts (Viva) festival kicked off yesterday and runs until the end of May.

This year’s edition of Viva presents a multilayered programme of initiatives consisting of different creative mediums and forms, intertwined to bring opposites together through old and new, faith and doubt, and conformity and rebellion.

The programme includes derelict materials and old objects rising from the ashes; sound material articulated with digital materials and synthetic sounds that will affect their spectral and timbral qualities; the protection, preservation and reuse of  water in ‘live art’ installations; the creative dynamism of calligraphy with ink painting; a collection of Polaroid photos combined with abstract poetic quotations and a video visualisation.

It will also delve into the relationship between Gozitan history, culture and civil society through photos of everyday life; a giant bee installation sculpted in transparent plexiglass; the interweaving of  independent and fine art photography; the use of computed tomography in an experimental way to create a series of abstract animated images; and a series of box assemblages that fragmentise and fetishise the female body while bringing together the sacred and the profane on the premise that woman and the deity share a common realm – that of the other.

In order to bring the arts closer closer to the people, besides the main venue of St James Cavalier, some of the festival venues will include Palazzo Messina in Valletta, Gozo Contemporary and Ta’ Ganu windmill in Birkirkara.

The Valletta International Visual Arts Festival kicked off yesterday and closes on May 30. For more details, visit http://viva.org.mt .