part of Fuse; a context-specific, community-driven project created and curated by Elyse Tonna, produced by the Valletta Cultural Agency as part of the Agency’s Cultural Programme/21.
The intervention reflects on one of the nine curatorial thematics of fuse, RESILIENCE.
The project started from months of research with the curator and communities around the Biċċerija building. Stories of balconies turned into kitchen spaces, laundry washed together outside, clever Kerrejja amenities and television sets shared in the street as an open living room. Actions by residents still echo this relationship of domesticity with the outside space, in particular through plants. From these stories of domestic life happening in the streets, the project imagines possibilities of coexistence with plants as species that live indoors and out.
The sculptures are hybrid objects, existing beyond the use of furniture and intersecting with ecology, setting up a mise-en-scene of 'outdoor furniture' that also work as planters by repurposing domestic furniture.
1. bathtub
Together with Jamie Barbara (sound artist) and Jacob Saliba (visual artist) we opened up an inter-species collaboration to record and transmit their presence in the street. A CRT television was scheduled to broadcast the audio-visual production generated from recorded, physical vibrations of plants in street.
3. television
The project took off from the existing initiative of residents caring for their public space through plants and increased the urban greening in the area. The project has laid roots in the community and parts of it are now a permanent installation after keen request from the residents and have been passed on to them to keep taking care of.