Elisa Carollo is an Italian art advisor, curator, and USPAP-compliant appraiser based in the US, NYC.
I believe that this Biennale can be a great opportunity for both Malta, and all the artists involved.
The richly multilayered history of the island, its cultural and geopolitical role and position through centuries, and the great set of mythology and mysterious stories surrounding it, will certainly provide a unique ground for international artists to engage with this rich heritage and the Mediterranean culture and history at large, while addressing some of the most pressing issues of our time.
Malta has always both divided and connected profoundly different cultures, resulting in a characteristically eclectic fabric of cultures and ethnicity, as well as hybridization and exchange. In this sense, I believe that Malta can really inspire a more multicultural approach, that can help to transition and embrace a global vision we need today, that goes beyond the national frontiers and accepts the cultural richness and growth that can result from this exchange.
As we saw in the past Biennales, artists show not only to be more and more aware of the major problematics of our globe, but also willing to directly deal with those in their practices aiming if not at finding solutions, at least inspiring an alternative approach and paradigm of coexistence between human beings, and with other species.
This often results today in works that tap into ancestral wisdom, ancient knowledge and primordial spiritualities and energies, which I believe artists will find and feel also on the island.
In this sense, I really hope that with this Biennale the island can really have the opportunity to turn into a privileged observatory of the journey of human civilization from the past to the present, to try to imagine a more sustainable and equitable future.
Artists have in fact this ability to foresee or imagine what the future will retain, helping us to attend to the essential concerns of all human life and relate ourselves to lives in the future.
Art is thoroughly rooted in reality, after all, but it is also able, as dreams, to vividly be in a simultaneous relation to the ‘three orders’ of our perception of the world: Real, Symbolic and Imaginary. In this way artists can bring to tangible forms powerful visions or urgent concerns that reside in the collective unconscious.
So far we have had incredibly enthusiastic feedback from major names in today’s contemporary art scene who are interested in engaging with the unique historical and cultural context of Malta.
Despite their busy calendars, most of the artists invited were willing to participate either with new projects specifically conceived for the curatorial sections and this special context or adapting existing ones to the location.
The incredibly beautiful venues that Heritage Malta made available for this Biennale, is certainly helping to inspire and motivate artists to bring their art to the island.
That’s also the reason why I also enthusiastically joined the curatorial team, when invited:
I see in this Biennale a unique opportunity of both creative activation and promotion of an incredible heritage, and an inspiring platform where artists will really be able to create powerful works that can talk about our time at this point of civilization.
