The Gabriel Caruana Foundation’s SPRING Artistic Programme 2022 – 2024 is hosting its first collective exhibition, launching on the 7th of July at The Mill, Birkirkara.

The exhibition, entitled ‘Beneath the Surface’, features new works by Samuel Ciantar, Sarah Chircop and Isaac Warrington.

‘Beneath the Surface’ is conceptually developed and curated by Co-Creative Director and Curator Elyse Tonna.

“Collectively and separately the artists have unfolded different meanings and associations to the acts of resistance, resilience and rebellion. Within the exhibition, the surface takes on a metaphorical meaning and transforms itself into an opportunity for investigation across various happenings, most often beyond our control”, Elyse Tonna expressed.  

The SPRING Programme of Emerging Artists by the Gabriel Caruana Foundation is a tailor-made artistic programme which adapts to the opportunities, challenges and needs of artists who are seeking to progress, develop or challenge their practice in different ways.

Through the building of individual and collective relationships with the artists of the programme, Elyse Tonna collaborates directly in a year-long process (or longer) of discussions, critical engagement and understanding to develop a public showcase (exhibition and interrelated events), supporting the artists in various ways.

The thematics of the collective shows are developed by the curator, following lengthy discussions with the participating artists, keeping in mind the strategic objectives of the Foundation and conceptual frameworks relevant to the international diaspora.

In the 2022-2024 programme, the artists have been challenged to respond and critically reflect on a series of keywords which are either in line or otherwise challenge their conceptual interests, ultimately unfolding in a process of artistic creation and discussion leading up to the development of the work.

The SPRING Artistic Programme is managed by Co-Creative Director and Programme Manager Raffaella Zammit who is seeing ways of instilling values of care, collectivity and collaboration throughout the artistic programming by co-creating tailormade activities for the creative team.

Martina Camilleri is the Community Engagement Officer and she facilitates discussions between artists and the public through imaginative, creative, and sensitive means, thereby opening up the discourse on contemporary issues to the wider public.

The Exhibition runs from the 7th to the 28th of July at The Mill - Art, Culture and Crafts Centre, Birkirkara. More information about the Foundation’s artistic programming can be found here https://gabrielcaruanafoundation.org/events/

Get to know the artists:

Samuel Ciantar:

Samuel is an emerging artist with an academic background in architecture. His artistic practice is concerned with alternative ways of being and interacting with our environment, drawing insight from the relationship between humans, objects and spaces.

“My research often explores forgotten knowledge and ecological processes”, the emerging artist revealed.

He believes that in our modern world, we have become disconnected from the natural environment around us, and as such lost touch with more intangible forces that impact us. By delving into past ways of thinking and reconsidering systems that underpin our planet, he probes at constructing new perspectives for our anthropocentric age.

His approach also latches onto social actions and collaborative behaviour as important ways of navigating possible futures. Over the past years he had the opportunity to work on site-specific interventions in the Maltese urban landscape, his most recent intervention forming part of fuse; a context-specific, community-driven project in Valletta.

Elisa von Brockdorff

Sarah Chircop:

Sarah Chircop has worked within the creative and cultural sectors for the past eight years. She is from and based in Malta and has collaborated, led and supported visual art projects, taking on various roles as curator, coordinator, writer, researcher, editor and maker.

She graduated from the University of Malta with a Masters of Arts in History of Art and has since attended a number of courses, workshops and residencies relating to writing and image-making.

Sarah has shared that her “work investigates the relationship between absence and presence, the self and the other, the image and the mirror, bringing forth questions of reflection and refraction”.

Lisa Attard

Isaac Warrington:

Isaac Warrington is an artist and art educator. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at MCAST and further pursued advanced studies in philosophy, psychology and environmental science.

The talented artist is currently carrying out  a postgraduate degree in Art Education at the University of Malta.

In his artistic practice, Warrington looks to Ontology (the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being) and Phenomenology (an approach that concentrates on the relationship between consciousness and the objects of direct experience) as starting points for most of his works.

He also adopts a Socratic attitude in relation to how humans interact with the world around them and with each other, particularly with regards to the Maltese context.

In Warrington’s words his “works tend to have a dark and critical nature; with tendencies to portray local existential concepts with an absurdist attitude. At times, my work even appears to be savage, primal and spiritual”.

Elisa von Brockdorff