Elyse Tonna

Areas of interest: Ecological thinking, post-fossil fuel cultures, new materialisms, post-/Anthropocene, speculative futures, threatened landscapes, living heritage

Why are you a part of Magic Carpets: I was invited by Margerita Pulè, from Unfinished Art Space, and Sabine and Thomas Beusch, from the Mahalla Festival, to collaborate with them in developing a residency programme for emerging artists in Malta in 2023. I readily accepted as the values of the MagiC Carpets platform are in alignment with my personal motivations; namely supporting emerging artists and facilitating their movement across spaces and time.

Magic Carpets project | Beyond What Drifts Us Apart

Practice: Interdisciplinary

Artists: Fernando Ferreira, Marija Rasa Kudabaite, Samuel Ciantar, Rakel Vella, Charlene Galea, Alfred Graf

Beyond What Drifts Us Apart (BWDUA) is a multi-year research project which endeavours to uncover the less dominant narratives associated with the environments surrounding historic coastal towers in Malta. Beyond challenging the colonial narratives associated with these culturally significant sites, BWDUA seeks to initiate investigations into the consequent relationships that have developed or are developing between their surrounding impacted landscapes and non-human communities. Employing decolonial and post-anthropocentric perspectives, BWDUA acknowledges that current realities, converging towards a climate collapse and an overabundance of technological systems, have exploited natural systems and cycles.

As a project, it thus intersects further with climate justice, territorial defense, and biocultural diversity preservation.

Past projects

fuse

Position: Curator, Artistic Director and Project Manager

A context-specific and interdisciplinary, community-driven project, Fuse was a two-year process (2019–2021) involving elements of creative placemaking, safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, and active community engagement and inclusion through storytelling. The main aim was to explore, investigate and implement a collaborative project with the communities in the vicinity of the Valletta Design Cluster (VDC), also known as the Biċċerija. A public art exhibition featuring eight interventions occurred between 30 April and 16 July 2021. The project was nominated as one of the Top 75 Most Inspiring Projects of the New European Bauhaus Awards 2021 and shortlisted for the Arts Council Best Project in the Community 2022.

SURA

Position: Curator

The exhibition SURA at Spazju Kreattiv (2021), accompanied by a book, brought to life a collection of contemporary handmade dolls (created by Glen Calleja and Lori Sauer) along with their stories (by Clare Azzopardi). Developed over a three-year process of research and experimentation, SURA explored the various roles of dolls as experienced across cultures, attempting to understand the human need to create objects in our own likeness or to personify belonging or ostracisation. SURA reflected aspects inherent to communities and societies; a reflection of place, processes, stereotypes, the popular, the marginalised.

The exhibition was awarded the ARTZID Best Exhibition of the Year 2022.

rajt ma rajtx … naf li rajt

Position: Curator

A solo exhibition by Matthew Attard at Valletta Contemporary, Malta. Deriving from the phrase: rajt ma rajtx … smajt ma smajtx, the title hints at a code of silence behaviour commonly known as omertà. Additionally, it is an invitation to adopt a playful, yet critical approach to interpreting socio-political contexts. The intentional modification to the original phrase directly references Matthew’s artistic practice, who is in constant dialogue with an eye-tracker. This device transforms eye movements into machine-generated data, which is then shaped by the artist himself, reinforcing a fictitious techno-symbiosis characterisation through a creative practice that links the eye-tracker to modes of contemporary drawing.

Throughout the exhibition, the eye-tracker highlighted widespread local realities intertwined with ongoing complexities related to identity and context. Adopting a tongue-in-cheek approach, the exhibition featured a number of site-specific interventions stemming from eye drawing performances manifested in particular contexts.

SPRING Programme for Emerging Artists by the Gabriel Caruana Foundation

Position: Curator and Co-Creative Director

The SPRING Artistic Programme for Emerging Artists provides a platform where artists are encouraged to thrive, to collaborate, to create new ecosystems. SPRING is a space to reflect, to position oneself between the medium, the space, the collective, and resonate. SPRING is an ongoing process of experimentation, critical reflection, and renewal.

The SPRING Programme for Emerging Artists is a tailor-made artistic programme that adapts to the opportunities, challenges, and the needs of artists who are seeking to progress, develop or challenge their practice in various ways.

It has so far hosted 4 solo exhibitions, over 10 collective exhibitions with around 35 participating emerging artists. The programme was developed and is led by the Gabriel Caruana Foundation.

The SPRING Programme was shortlisted for the ARTZID Best Exhibition Programme in 2022.

Why have you chosen to be a curator or why has curatorship chosen you? I would say a bit of both. It was never my intention to become a curator; I barely knew what the role entailed when I started out. Generally speaking, I believe there is still a major lack of awareness and knowledge about what a curator’s role involves, especially in Malta. On one hand, I am grateful for the many exchanges over the years with mentors, artists, curators, collaborators, and friends who have definitely shaped who I am today. On the other hand, I draw inspiration from outside contemporary art, mainly as a reaction to what is happening around us. Beyond the theoretical and conceptual frameworks and ideas, the most important thing to me is to strive to remain open to learning, to adhere to core values, and to remain humble. Being a curator is just one of many labels; the role involves adaptation, facilitation, mediation, and creation.

What do you think is the purpose of art? To break boundaries, binaries, and to dream. To speculate, to create opportunities for discussion, to articulate multiple perspectives and differences, to be a means to connect communities amidst their differences.

Contacts

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