Final exhibition of Ġgantija 2013 Project at St James Cavalier

The final part of Ġgantija 2013 Project, led by the Ars Vitae Ensemble, will be held at the Upper Galleries of St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, Valletta, and will run from 12 July up to 24 August. During this final part of the project, new works by Victor Agius, including sculptures in mixed media will be exhibited.

Mariella Cassar’s new musical work Ġgantija II will be performed on 6 August in the music room at the same venue. During this event, a fully illustrated catalogue, including images from the Ggantija 2013 performance, installation views of the final exhibition and the publication of the literary works by Mifsud, together with a CD containing audio clips of Ġgantija 2013 will be given to guests. Ġgantija II will be performed by Tricia Dawn Williams, Gisele Grima, Simon Abdilla Joslin and Alistair Attard.

Ġgantija 2013 Project is an ongoing multidisciplinary work embracing music, visual art and literature. The project aims to dialogue with Ġgantija, a Unesco World Heritage Site situated on the island of Gozo through the use of contemporary media. Curated by Dr Vince Briffa, this artistic initiative is a group effort between composer Mariella Cassar, artist Victor Agius and the international acclaimed Maltese writer Immanuel Mifsud. The project was launched in June 2013 at the Temples via a performance of Ġgantija 2013, composed by Cassar and penned by Mifsud, and sculpture interventions and light installations by Agius.

Between June and November 2013 a number of interactive hands-on workshops were held at Heritage Malta’s National Museum of Archaeology, the Manoel Theatre in Valletta, Ġgantija Interpretation Centre, Xagħra Youth Centre and Skola Sajf in Xagħra Gozo. These were led by Agius and Cassar themselves while the one at the Manoel Theatre for the music teachers was led by Dr Chris Best from Falmouth University of the UK. All these workshops aimed to show ways of how to interact with a historical site via contemporary art and music.

When commenting on the works presented during last year’s performance, the project curator Dr Briffa stated that: “Agius’ sculptural and media installations, redefines today’s meaning of collective ritual through a combined process of production and reaffirms man’s innate regard for the creative process as a distinctive means of realising a higher state of being.” He added that “the ambiguity of this evocation is further heightened by the visceral sonority of Cassar’s composition which manages to concurrently evoke the primordial desires of our ancestors while contemporaneously speak in a modish language.”

Ġgantija 2013 Project is hosted by St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity and Heritage Malta and is supported by the Malta Arts Fund, Banif Bank (Malta) plc, GasanMamo Insurance, Gozo Cultural Office, Xagħra Local Council, Gozo Express Services Ltd, Marsamena Wines, Artsphere International and The Janatha Stubbs Foundation.