For Daniel Bugeja, cartography is not just a hobby; it is a major passion which has driven him from a young age. Anna Marie Galea caught up with him to find out more.

What got you into this very particular kind of art form?

The art of cartography has intrigued me for years as it also ties up with other art disciplines I love such as calligraphy.

[attach id=678731 size="medium" align="right"]One of Daniel Bugeja’s painstakingly detailed map, currently on exhibition at The Inquisitor’s Palace.[/attach]

I’ve drawn maps on occasion and was always mesmerised by the messages they convey. In literature, I loved stories which had maps in them because I felt it gave depth and feeling to the narrative.

In some ways, what I am creating here is also a story: a Maltese story. I can say that I started doing cartography just like any other interest in my life, out of pure curiosity to try something different. I remember drawing and copying maps from my favourite works; sometimes I was even asked to draw maps at school so that they could be used as props in plays.

How do you marry your twin passions: art and history?

This is not my first foray balancing art and history, as some years ago I put up an exhibition of 3D models of Maltese fortified gateways. I always like to foster a genuine feeling of awe at our island’s riches.

That said, I also portray and present buildings which are no longer standing in an effort to depict what we have lost.

In this way, I try to encourage people to preserve what is left, before a lack of consideration among other things ends up losing us our heritage.

Where did you believe the current exhibition  would lead?

Technically speaking, my first map which related to Malta was done around five years ago, but little did I know at the time where that would lead.

At best, in my mind I had thought of drawing maps of the main cities, the usual suspects of Mdina, the Three Cities, Ċittadella in Gozo and so on. I didn’t think I would bother drawing the other villages and towns.

Time passed and then, while researching something entirely different, I came across a thesis about old Maltese medieval villages which had been written by a foreign student.

I gradually started to research the matter and drawing maps based on my research, which is still ongoing.

What was the process of piecing it together like?

There are three main classifications in my research. Those villages that disappeared before the 15th century are the hardest to find information about and, sometimes, it’s just about piecing information and speculating about what might have possibly been or happened.

There are those villages that survived up to the 18th century, for which more information is readily available and, lastly, there are those villages which were already present during the Middle Ages but have managed to survive to this day.

The latter case is obviously the easiest to obtain information about.  I have discovered around 50 settlements from all over the island which ceased to exist between the early 15th and 18th century.

I have discovered around 50 settlements from all over the island which ceased to exist between the early 15th century and 18th century

In fact, the bulk of them had disappeared by the middle of the 16th century. Unfortunately, most of the time nothing remains of these villages, perhaps stone ruins in a field which could be a suggestion of what might have been there.

However, many of the chapels which could be found at the centre of these villages or their ruins can still be found.

For example, the ruins of the church dedicated to St Catherine in what was known as Ħal-Bakkari bordering Żurrieq and Ħal-Far are one example. Close to Siġġiewi the chapel of St Mary in what was once the hamlet of Ħal-Xluq is still standing. However, there are enough villages which have not been encroached with urban development and therefore, a detailed study would not go amiss to determine what truly lies below us.

A feat in drafting, each map takes you a considerable amount of time to make. How does it work out?

Drawing a map is the end part of a very long process. Before drawing a map, a lot of time is put into researching the hamlet or village.

I usually end up writing a whole essay on the village and some of this information will be shown on each map being presented in this exhibition. Following the collection and cataloguing of the information gathered, it would then be up to me to come up with a visually inspiring map to portray the information that I have on paper.

Sometimes, the information is very scarce, leading to more of an artistic impression rather than a realistic map.

However, even though the houses may not be realistic representations of what stood on site, the roads, chapels or perhaps references to towers are usually drawn according to the information provided and are not mere figments of my imagination.

So is this exhibition the beginning of something bigger?

This exhibition marks the start of a bigger project indeed;  there are around 50 settlements that have vanished and I will be presenting around 20 of them, with the hope of drawing and researching all of them.

My aim is to give an idea of who we are and where we actually came from. I want people to appreciate that, when they’re on their way to the airport and they drive past the main roundabout, they are actually driving over what once was Ħal-Resqun.

The exhibition runs at the Inquisitor’s Palace in Vittoriosa until November 10.

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