AN ART INSTALLATION BY TEXT CATALOGUE , VALLETTA / 2022
Common Ground is built on a three-year long documentary of the absurd firewall of barriers set up around the Parliament building. The gradual accumulation of photos and videos taken from the crude camera off our phones formed an unintentional documentary, one with various layers of critique which we are still peeling away today through the manifestation of the proposed artwork for Shifting Contexts II.
The artwork is intended to be a continuation of the archive: a crystallisation of our underlying thesis that a space is not a priori public, free and democratic but is only so through the continuous performance of people exercising their public-ness. The barrier, which has become synonymous with the control and take-up of public space (particularly during the national protests under Parliament), becomes itself the protagonist and a conduit of critique in the artwork. In the barrier we recognise the collective memories of those tumultuous weeks of protests: the scars of use on its frame after being battered and tossed to the ground and dragged around Parliament square a patina of those memories and events, much like the crust of time that forms on limestone buildings. By shifting it from the context of the Parliament square into the space of Spazju Kreattiv, the barrier is at once declared an object of history (a specific moment in time) and an object of potential.
Common Ground was exhibited at Space C, Spazzju Kreattiv, Valletta between 3rd June and 3rd July 2022. Text Catalogue was selected alongside 8 other artists to participate in Shifting Contexts II, a specific visual arts project by Spazju Kreattiv in collaboration with Agenzija Zghazagh
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