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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 31 AUGUST 2014 39 THIS WEEK Three-legged horse inaugurates visual arts festival Back to school has come early at The Notebook Centre in San Gwann and Victoria Gozo The New DELL Inspiron 3531 The Most affordable Dell Laptop on the island Dual Core Processor 4GB RAM 500GB Hard Drive 15.6 Inch HD LED Display HDMI WIFI + Bluetooth Windows 8.1 Free Carrycase Price €429 inc VAT Shop Open in Rabat Gozo in Collaboration With Cartridge World Find an Equivalent Dell Laptop Locally for a better price and we will beat the price by another €50 and we will also give you a free gift for your troubles. We are the only Company in Malta to give you 2 years Full warranty on the battery and Charger of your laptop BEAT THAT !! Gwann and Victoria Gozo 3531 The Most affordable Dell Laptop on the island The Notebook Centre Triq Bella Vista, San Gwann 4EL s -OB %MAIL INFO THENOTEBOOKCENTRECOMMT 7EB WWWTHENOTEBOOKCENTRECOMMT Maimed horses and sado-masochism characterised the launch of VIVA – the Valletta International Visual Arts festival, which will be taking place in Valletta throughout next week TEODOR RELJIC ALREADY the focus of debate for the last couple of days, Austin Camilleri's Zieme – a sculpture of a horse with a missing leg – was pre- sented as one of the key pieces of VIVA – the Valletta International Visual Arts festival, which will be taking place in Valletta from Sep- tember 1 to 7. Notable for being Malta's very first festival dedicated solely to the visual arts, VIVA – under the artis- tic direction of Raphael Vella – will bring together local and interna- tional artists, curators and cultural theorists, in a week dedicated to exhibitions and film screenings. The event will be preceded by a currently-ongoing 'curatorial school', which invites international curators to organise workshops for local artists, art students and as- piring curators. Setting out to undercut the po- litical pomp and ceremony of tra- ditional equestrian sculptures, Zieme was strategically placed in front of the new parliament build- ing by City Gate. "I was struck by the work, espe- cially since it is located in front of the parliament building," Culture Minister Owen Bonnici said. "As a member of that same parlia- ment myself, this got me thinking: could it be that an institution that was previously the main source of power has now lost some of that power? Maybe it's the media – and especially social media – that wields real power right now. "I'm glad that the sculpture can lead to this kind of debate," Bon- nici added. The installation Power Exchange by JP Azzopardi and Michael Camilleri – another investigation into power dynamics, this time through 'sado-masochistic' image- ry – was also inaugurated as part of VIVA. Standing near the monument of Jean De La Vallette in Ordinance Street, the structure – an armchair in a glass case, embellished with suggestive accoutrements – sets out to detail the sado-masochistic relationship between those govern- ing and those governed. Another notable commission to be exhibited as part of the VIVA initiative, Victor Agius's Genesis, a structure made out of Gozitan Blue Clay which evokes the island's prehistoric Ggantija temple, will be exhibited at the National Museum of Fine Arts from September 1 to 19. "The rawness of unfried Gozitan blue clay illustrates the relation- ship between the ambience of [the Ggantija temple] and our physical association with the earth," the VIVA programme reads. The VIVA programme this year includes a large number of events concentrated around the week of September 1 to 7, with most ex- hibitions and works inaugurated this week being on display free of charge throughout the month of September. Locations around Valletta in- clude St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, Heritage Malta (Melita Street), Pjazza Teatru Rjal, and the National Museum of Fine Arts. VIVA is being co-organised by St James Cavalier Centre for Creativ- ity, Arts Council Malta, the Vallet- ta 2018 Foundation and Aġenzija Żgħażagħ. For more information log on to: www.viva.org.mt Zieme by Austin Camilleri. Photo by Ray Attard Power Exchange by JP Azzopardi and Michael Camilleri New book brings together a collection of Manwel Dimech's poetry A new book, 'Dimech Poeta: Mill- ħabs għall-eżilju' (Poet Dimech: From prison to the exile) by Jessica Micallef, presents for the first time a collection of Manwel Dimech po- ems. The poems were originally scat- tered across various publications and manuscripts, and were written in Maltese, Italian, English, and a few in French. The book includes Maltese translations for the poems written in foreign languages. It also has ex- planation notes on each poem, and a glossary for words in Maltese which are not in use today. The author of the book, Jessica Mi- callef, is a 22-year-old University of Malta graduate from Żebbuġ. She is a Master of Arts in Maltese Literature. Her intellectual interests mainly focus on how Maltese literature appeared in popular newspapers, and how these writings gave their share in the devel- opment of social reform. To this effect, she undertook close study of laurates like Juann Mamo, Manuel Dimech and others against the historical and cultural back- ground which produced them. The book 'Dimech Poeta: Mill-ħabs għall- eżilju' is her first publication. The official launching of the book coicides with the 100 anniversary of Manuel Dimech's exile. He was exiled on 5 September, 1914, an exile which ended with his death in Egypt six- and-a-half years later, in 1921. The public activity is being held under the patronage of the President of Malta on the 100th anniversary of Dimech's exile exactly to the day, time and place – September 5 at 19:00, at the Valletta Waterfront opposite the Lift. The activity includes the laying of wreaths at sea to commemorate Di- mech's exile. MATTHEW AGIUS ONCE maligned as the seedy red light district of Valletta known as "the Gut" by British servicemen, Strait Street's colourful history will be celebrated in the STRET- TA Festival 2014, which will take place from September 5 to 8 this year. Chrysander Agius on behalf of the Straight Street Organisation Committee told reporters that the events will feature live music, artis- tic installations and re-enactments, amongst other things. In a nod to its "glory days", the street will be lit up in red and will feature four stages with musical performances by solo- ists and duets. A small cinema setup, showing PBS archive footage and an artisan mar- ket are also planned for the events. Agius thanked the main sponsors, Marsovin, Vodafone, M.Demajo and Sons, Farsons and V18 Chairperson Jason Micallef and the Valletta Local council for their assistance in the organising of the festival. Addressing the press, Culture Minister Owen Bonnici com- mended the initiative, which was mostly privately funded, expressing his confidence that the festival will grow in the years to come. Shops and restaurants in the street will be opening extra hours and will officially be open from 19:00 to 23:00 during the festival. Jessica Micallef Stretta Festival 2014 hopes to get straight As from the public