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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 2 AUGUST 2015 30 This Week Following the MCAST Art and Design End-of-Year exhibition, MaltaToday interviews some of Malta's (hopefully) up-and- coming artists. This week, we speak to Tom Farrugia The lure of the surreal How has your time at MCAST shaped and influenced your work? I think the greatest boon I got from MCAST was the opportu- nity to experiment with sculpture and three-dimensional media, es- pecially when I had assignments dedicated to formal sculpture practice. Together with moulding and casting, this helped me start pro- ducing small to medium scale works in clay, resin, Plaster of Paris and occasionally, wood and stone. I also had some basic tuition in jewellery design, mainly small- scale precious metal-working and the lost-wax casting process, which allows me to experiment with creating small, wearable ar- tefacts. Other than that, I would have to say that the guidance of cer- tain tutors of mine was invaluable and they went out of their way to help me in order to make up for the institute's often awkward and lackadaisical approach to artistic education. At this point in time, what would you say is the main defining fac- tor of your work? I work primarily out of a fasci- nation with people, both in their physical aesthetics and the psy- chological implications behind them. I prefer to treat a portrait as something between a still life and a landscape; placing one or more human figures within a physical and emotional context. Memento Mori is also a guilty pleasure of mine, between the silver skulls and the sketches of bones, though I don't put much out for fear of getting too repeti- tive or seeming kitsch. What do you make of the lo- cal artistic scene? Would you say that it's accommodating to young artists such as yourself? This is something of a difficult subject – I do try to attend exhi- bitions and keep in contact with some local artists and the scene feels very eclectic to me. I see a wide variety of media, approaches and skill levels exhibited, but more often than not, I prefer the slightly more underground scene. A good number of artists don't seem to be interested in exhibiting their work conventionally; graf- fiti artists or sculptors working for films or designers, jewellers, tat- tooists, and so on. It isn't necessar- ily difficult to get your work into an exhibition, as long as you have work to show – it could just be a question of funding or seizing the right opportunity. That notwith- standing, it's difficult for any artist to get significant sales in Malta, whether they exhibit often or not. So it's accommodating in some ways and perhaps not others. What is the next step in your ar- tistic development? Despite wanting to be a part of the artistic community, and ide- ally make money from my work, I feel like I have a long way to go in terms of technical skill as well as that creative, artistic adeptness which makes strong and interest- ing work. I want to practice my craft more than I've had the chance to in the last year or so, and work on my figurative painting and sculpture, as well as some contemporary il- lustration. In conceptual terms, I've been exploring Sigmund Freud and Ernst Jentsch's Unheimlich and the darker side of the human psy- che in aesthetic terms. It's quite a pursuit, generally easier to express in a moving format, so that gives me quite a bit to play with visually. I also like to explore the surreal and occasionally the somewhat bizarre, but generally do this while keeping some grounding in reality in order to keep things at least aes- thetically relatable. For more on Tom Farrugia, check out his online portfolio at: http:// cargocollective.com/TomFarrugia Knowledge over Artistic director Raphael Vella speaks to TEODOR RELJIC about this year's edition of the Valletta International Visual Arts Festival (VIVA), which for the second consecutive year will deliver an exhibition of contemporary art by local and international artists but more importantly, yet another iteration of its associated Curatorial School. Vella, a lecturer and artist in his own right, spoke about the outcome of last year's Festival – a Valletta 2018 initiative – and the priorities that Malta should keep in mind in developing its visual arts culture In terms of the evolution of the curatorial school, what lessons have you learnt from last year's edition – both of the Curatorial School in particular, and VIVA in general – that you're applying this time around? Like all first editions, last year's Curatorial School and VIVA were accompanied by a lot of enthusi- asm and some apprehension too. When you're exploring uncharted territory, you're never sure about how things will turn out until you are actually in their midst. Chron- ologically speaking, the idea for a Curatorial School came first by a few months, and a festival then seemed like a logical extension of the school programme. My reasoning then was that it would not be enough to bring in- ternational curators and academ- ics here to deliver lectures in the school. I believed that we needed to provide their sessions with a backdrop, an artistic context in which real interactions with the local scene would become possi- ble. Of course, the festival became much more than a 'backdrop'; it was in fact the more publicly vis- ible of the two components of the project. The international dimension is still very present in this year's VIVA. But we are trying to show more explicitly this year that a festival like this is ultimately a ne- gotiation of ideas, an exchange of knowledge, and not simply a re- enactment of imported notions of 'quality'. So we are offering more possibilities of showing the work of international and local artists in the same events. Following stu- dents' feedback we received last year, we are also offering more hands-on workshops at the Cu- ratorial School, which encourages more direct interaction between curators and small groups of stu- dents. Something that is very relevant to me (as well as many others, I hope!) is that we have a more de- veloped education programme delivered by international as well as local artists and educators this year. German artist Christoph Schäfer is presenting a drawing- based workshop that also comes to terms with the politics of urban space. A Masters student and PhD student in the new Department of Arts, Open Communities and Adult Education within the Fac- ulty of Education at the University of Malta are working with prison inmates and young people respec- tively on researched workshops that lead to concrete results. I guess that my own involvement in the field of education has col- oured the curatorial vision to some extent because VIVA is not simply about the art-object per se but also about the dialogues and contradictions that emerge from a confrontation between objects, ideas and institutions, media and audiences. How would you describe the outcome of the first Curatorial School? Would you say it's yield- ing results already? Interest in the first Curatorial School was overwhelming. I knew there was a need for something like this but the response was better than what I'd expected to achieve. Last year, we initiated an impor- tant link with Dutch counterparts, given the fact that Valletta is shar- ing the title of European Capital of Culture with Leeuwarden in 2018. Raphael Vella