poetics of an archive
franco-german pavilion at the first maltabiennale.art
The water reflects upon what it sees. In this way it acts as a door to another territory, a container that can consume and transport bodies to generate new lands. The sea is an archive that preserves stories told and untold. In this installation of works by Mariana Hahn and Simon Riccardi-Zani, a trajectory is drawn charting the sensitivity and poetry embedded within the sea's abundant womb.
The doors full of traces and stories from the old fish market which will soon be turned into a luxury hotel, the saltpans of Xwejni Gozo and the walls of Fort St Elmo each speak together through different processes.
Both artists propose salt as an important mediator of their main subjects. Salt preserves and corrodes at the same time, so that everything under its impact lives at the threshold—the door between Eros and Thanatos, an edge between the living and the dead. The knowledge it embeds within all which it comes in touch with is embedded into an ongoing process, knowledge that is being handed on, and included in a lived process, like a living archive. This is what binds the artworks of the pavilion—an understanding of the potential that the sea has to mediate, to bring together, to store and to start afresh.
PUBLIC PROGRAMME
PUBLIC OPENING — MARCH 15, NOON, PERFORMANCES BY MARIANA HAHN AND SIMON RICCARDI-ZANI, ST ELMO
OFFICIAL INAUGURATION — MARCH 22, 1600 BY PARTNERS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORPS IN FRANCE, GERMANY AND MALTA, ST ELMO
ARTEXPLORA OCEANS WEEKEND — MARCH 24, ART EXPLORA AGORA, GRAND HARBOUR
11h-12h: Panel ‘Art, Science, & Philanthropy’ moderated by Ashok Adiceam with Francoise Gaill, Markus Reymann, Blanche De Lestrange, Mariana Hahn, Andrew Borg Wirth
12h-13h: Sound Lunch featuring ‘OCEANS’ an EP by Yasmin Kuymizakis (Joon)
13h-14h: Panel moderated by Gabriel Zammit with Simon Riccardi-Zani, Vince Briffa, Renata Poljak
14h-15h: Film Screening followed by Q+A with artists Mariana Hahn and Renzo Spiteri
15h-16h : Voices by Marie Helene Pereira
CURATOR Andrew Borg Wirth
MAIN ARTIST Mariana Hahn
CO-ARTIST AND PERFORMER Simon Riccardi-Zani
DIRECTOR James Vernon
PERFORMER Jérémie Lafon
PHOTOGRAPHER Lisa Attard
Poetics of an Archive presents an installation, performances and public programme at Fort St Elmo, Valletta, Malta.
This pavilion is being presented under the patronage of Her Excellency Agnes Von der Mühll, Ambassador of France in Malta, and Her Excellency Tanja Beyer, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Malta.
This project collaborates with numerous voices from across artistic disciplines including Falk Parra-Witte, Gabriel Zammit, Mareike Dittmer, Marie Helene Perreira, Renata Poljak, Renzo Spiteri and Vince Briffa amongst others.
maltabiennale.art is organised by Heritage Malta through MUŻA, the Malta National Community Art Museum, in partnership with Arts Council Malta, under the patronage of His Excellency the President of Malta and UNESCO between March 11 and May 31 2024.
This project has been made possible through the French-German Cultural Fund, collaboratively administered by Goethe Institut and Institut Français.
A public programme around the pavilion was conceived in close collaboration with the International Panel for Ocean Sustainability (IPOS, Francoise Gaill) within the organizing committee of the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC, France, Ashok Adicéam, Head of Global affairs), to be hosted by France and Costa Rica in Nice in June 2025 .
Photos by Lisa Attard. Film Direction by James Vernon.
