Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1224129
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 22 MARCH 2020 4 THIS WEEK ART Among the many cultural casualties of covid-19 was Seb Tanti Burlo's exhibition 'Other Places: Because Let's Face It We've Fucked This One', which was set to show off the political cartoonist's more wistful side before the artist and curator Ann Dingli decided to pre-emptively postpone the opening in the interests of public safety. He sits down at a safe distance from TEODOR RELJIC to talk about how the pieces set to be shown carry an added resonance in these quarantined times 'I'm going to start practicing Now that social distancing has led to the closure of the planned 'Other Places' exhibition, would you say that the wistful escapism inherent in the works becomes all the more poignant? With even less fantastical places becoming forcefully 'othered', do you see the potential for the works slat- ed for this exhibit to resonate even deeper? Possibly. I may have created these Other Places as a reaction to the fact that I do not particu- larly like the world we've created for ourselves. Exasperated ine- quality, short term and myopic infrastructural upgrades, wasteful construction and a horrible de- pendency on one of the stupidest economic drivers: tourism. Now that people are forced to sit with themselves through self or forced quarantined in their homes, they may begin to come to terms with the fact that maybe the flat they took out a back-breaking loan to purchase ain't really worth it, or actually makes their quality of life worse than they previously thought. But they may also just not even bother and enjoy their L-shaped sofa they bought from IKEA while wasting away in front of Netflix or social media. Per- sonally, I think I'm going to start practicing some good ol' fash- ioned social media distancing. You're best known for your satirical cartoons on national media. Was 'Other Places' something of a holiday from all that? No, not a holiday. Perhaps more a revisiting of a younger self. Or another self. I suppose the work, although different to my satirical and political cartoons that are published in the media, dip in- to the same ink well from which they're born. Other Places deals with the same issues and prob- lems I deal with in my cartoons, only expressed in a different form. My satirical work is re- actionary in its nature. It stems from journalism and current events – it's a social commen- tary about a specific moment in time. Other Places is similar as its scenes are reactionary pieces too. Escapist or confrontational, they are places that will never be, but places that I hope to see. Walk us through the actual process of coming up with and designing these 'other places'. What took precedence as you were thinking them up? Was it the actual architecture and ge- ography, or more of a general mood or atmosphere? I wouldn't say there was an actu- Teodor Reljic "As long as there is life there will be someone who will examine that life from their point of view and try in their own way to create something" Seb Tanti Burlo. Photo by Simon Tanti Burlo