Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1542372
3 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 4 JANUARY 2026 CULTURE Jiangnan Garden: A Place of Return, an exhibition of paintings by Yang Tang IN recent years, Malta has been changing at a visible and steady pace. Buildings rise quickly, neighbourhoods are reshaped, and daily life moves faster than before. This pace is familiar to many Maltese residents. Change itself is not necessarily the prob- lem. What often goes unnoticed is the quiet tension that follows — a feeling that there is less space to pause, and less time to reflect. The exhibition A Place of Re- turn, currently on view at the Malta Society of Arts, unfolds within this shared context. It presents a group of paintings created between 2017 and 2020, during the early stage of the art- ist's practice. At that time, the artist was living in Shanghai, a city shaped by rapid develop- ment and constant pressure. Painting became a way to pre- serve continuity and inner still- ness amid external acceleration. The recurring elements in the works — bridges, courtyards, rocks, and water — are not presented as landscapes to be recognised. Instead, they form a quiet spatial structure that in- vites a slower, more inward way of looking. These spaces are not meant to be observed from a dis- tance, but to be entered mental- ly, offering a sense of pause and orientation. Shown in Malta today, the works take on a new resonance. Malta, too, is experiencing rap- id development, bringing both vitality and a subtle sense of un- certainty. In this setting, the idea of "return" does not refer to a specific place or cultural origin. It points instead to a shared hu- man question: how to maintain an inner sense of order while everything around us continues to change. The exhibition space itself carries particular meaning. The Malta Society of Arts, the is- land's oldest art institution, is housed in a historic palace. Its basement vaults form a rare in- ward space beneath the city — quiet, enclosed, and separated from the outward-facing world above. This sheltered atmos- phere naturally encourages re- flection, making it a fitting set- ting for an exhibition centred on the idea of return. A Place of Return does not pro- pose answers. It offers a quiet in- vitation to pause, and to consid- er: where do we return to — and how do we recognise that place when we arrive?