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THIS WEEK ART maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 DECEMBER 2018 4 How did your participation in the Malta Pavilion come about, and what attracted you to the themes that underlie 'Heterotopias of Evocation'? The mutual appreciation and respect that was cultivated between participat- ing artists Vince Briffa, Trevor Borg, and myself and the harmonious teamwork that developed during our past exhibi- tions led us to join our creative forces in order to develop a proposal for the 2019 Malta Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. This is where Hesperia Iliadou-Suppiej, our curator, had a major role in bringing the works together both conceptually and spatially and architect Matthew Joseph Casha, together with production manager George Lazoglou, completed the team by offering their technical and organisational experiences. It was challenging, but not all that dif- ficult, to find a common ground which would form the foundation of our pro- posal. Our theme was a path that was easily traced during our discussions. The project focuses on the role of the island as a cultural nucleus of the Mediterranean Sea, both in history and in current times and underlines concerns of displacement and migration. Additionally, performativ- ity and affect were intentionally targeted as we were dealing with such sensitive and traumatic issues. Thus, our intention of raising questions and provoking reactions brought our proposal in tune with this year's theme of the Venice Art Biennale as described by its artistic director, Ralph Rugoff the project, "Will aim to welcome its public to an expansive experience of the deep involvement... engaging visitors in a series of encounters." Given that Malta's participation this year will mark a distinct shift from what happened last year – namely, that it will be a far more 'minimal' take than the bazaar approach of 'Homo Melitensis' – your contribution will be made to gel very closely with that of your fellow participants at the Pavilion (Vince Briffa and Trevor Borg)? 'Bazaar approach' is a very precarious way of describing Homo Melitensis, as it has a negative implication. The fact is that Cyprus shares a similar history and past with Malta, and I can clearly see how Ho- mo Melitensis: An Incomplete Inventory in 19 Chapters, looks intentionally and ef- fectively inwards and delivers an associa- tive investigation of Maltese identity in an ethnographic approach. Simultaneously, it is underpinning an endeavor of self-ex- culpation, which is logically the first step towards self-empowerment. On the other hand, drawing on the tri- fold of history/archaeology, myth/tradi- tion and vision/expectation, Maleth / Haven / Port - Heterotopias of Evoca- tion aims to create a topos/locus of ar- tistic conversation for the whole of the Mediterranean Sea… it attempts to look outwards and place Malta in a geographi- cal and geopolitical context. Malta is not defined exclusively by what is happening within its borders but respectively by what is happening in the waters and the lands surrounding it…whatever that implies. I anticipate that my work will contribute in providing this perspective…offering another viewpoint within the Mediterra- nean Sea. The refugee experience is also an important aspect of your work. Could you tell us why this theme first became important to you to explore, and how do you think it informs your contribution to the Pavilion? By the age of five, I had experienced a political coup followed by a civil war, the invasion of Turkish military troops, the resulting occupation by a foreign country, the captivity and the subsequent displace- ment of my whole family and the loss of any keepsakes that would have reminded me of life before 1974. My family was, above all, accompanied by an unremitting grief and pain, especially because of my missing grandfather, which characterised the atmosphere in my home for years to come. My early traumatising experiences per- sisted stubbornly as I was growing up, as if they were happening, again and again, hovering like an echo, continually repro- ducing themselves. It was only later, after I became an artist, that I began to work through these experiences of trauma. This progressively became the main subject of my artistic research and work. It could be argued that through my own practice, I re-enacted dislocation, I recreated the experience of transportability of space and memory, and the question of erasure and oblivion versus the perseverance of memory. Following this line, in Atlantropa-X, I am examining the idea of activated spec- tatorship as a politicised aesthetic practice and I am aiming to create a transitive rela- tionship between the two in the wider so- cial and political arena. One of the pitfalls I want to avoid in creating this work is the fetishization of the subject matter. I wish to work on an affective level which does not in any way directly reference those events, but deals with them tangentially. Atlantropa-X, your installation for 'Heterotopias of Evocation', recalls an architectural project first dreamed up in the 1920s but that carries distinctly futuristic overtones. What attracted you to this concept, and why did you find it to be the appropriate groundwork for your contribution to the Pavilion? Atlantropa-X in the context of the Malta Pavilion will aim to conceptually and ar- A shared past and a mutual destiny Among the trio forming part of the Malta Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, Cypriot artist Klitsa Antoniou speaks to TEODOR RELJIC about how her experience as a refugee informs her piece, Atlantropa-X, which uses early 20th century utopian visions to speak about the complex dynamics of the Mediterranean Teodor Reljic