Opening on 24 April in Sliema, the exhibition brings together works inspired by the artist’s travels through Australia, India, Cuba, and Costa Rica, landscapes shaped by complex histories of colonial encounter. Though geographically and culturally distinct, these places reveal unexpected similarities, where layers of European influence intersect with deeply rooted local identities.
Referencing Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, the exhibition reflects on the imposition of European notions of land ownership onto territories long sustained through Indigenous knowledge. It also considers colonisation as an act not only of control, but of longing, an attempt to recreate “home” in unfamiliar ground, often met with resistance.
Drawing on the concept of Anthropophagy, the works explore how cultures absorb and transform external influences, rather than passively inherit them. Zammit’s compositions merge natural landscapes with subtle traces of their colonial pasts, forming images where geographies blur and histories overlap.
Borrowed Territories presents landscapes as sites of encounter and negotiation, shaped by movement, memory, and exchange, yet grounded in their own enduring presence.