Volume 4, Issues 2-3 (Oct., 2017)

Editorial: Again, Plato’s Garden, Again
Aaron Aquilina and Jeffrey Micallef: Lancaster University, University of Malta

‘To challenge the perception of place’: An Interview with Adrian Abela
The antae Editorial Board

‘Juggling between different versions of reality’: An Interview with Alfred Sant
The antae Editorial Board

Selected Poems
Joseph Buttiġieġ, trans. by Aaron Aquilina

Selected Poems
Gioele Galea, trans. by Abigail Ardelle Zammit

A Gut Feeling
Victoria-Melita Zammit: University of Malta

Amazing Grace
Amber Duivenvoorden: Lancaster University

Light a Tie Up
Karen Elizabeth Steed

On Friendship and Mourning the Death of a Friend: Reading Brodu’s Debut Album
Kurt Borġ: Staffordshire University

Stand-Up Comedy in Malta
Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone: University of Malta

Magic, Poetry, and Production: A Conversation with Jesmond Vassallo
Christine Caruana: University of Malta

Standard History/Marginal History: Comments on the Narrative of Twentieth Century Maltese Art
Nikki Petroni: University of Malta

It is a common though not wholly unjustified misconception that Maltese twentieth-century art is backwards, anachronistic, and a softcopy of the Western avant-garde. The art of this period indeed resisted radical or even subtle modernist, aesthetic, and political developments, and there are seminal instances of direct engagement with the modernist project that lack an adequate discourse. Not only is such art hardly visible in the public sphere, but it has, furthermore, been historically undermined by an avoidance of critical and theoretical scrutiny. Studying art and its textual representation incited the realisation that the epistemological foundations of art-historical literature on Maltese modern art were debilitated by inconsistencies, passive narrative approaches, and, most perplexingly, unsatisfactory deductions posed as conclusive answers. Frankly, much material is repetitive and disengaged because of habitual preferences for biographical readings, prohibiting a thorough and contextualised understanding of images which could not be textually translated with the existing discourse.

The Structure-Agency Interplay: Sociology of the Arts in Malta
Valerie Visanich: University of Malta

My concern in this article is on the structure-agency interplay in the arts in Malta. This exploration is couched within sociological discourse on the arts, presenting an exemplary case of studying structural factors influencing art practices as well as the reflexive deliberations of artists. One way to explain this dichotomy is by drawing from a recent and transnational cultural research project entitled A National Oasis?, conducted by BJCEM (Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean), on the geopolitical peculiarities of the artistic scenes in the “peripheral” states of San Marino, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Malta. Such analysis explores discourses on “periphery”, to make sense of such geo-cultural locations as polemical fields in relation to their dis/similar cultural, economic, and political morphology. This article focuses exclusively on Malta, without assuming a lineal trajectory of cultural conditions especially in light of diverse economic and political histories.

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