Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/893950
maltatoday SUNDAY 29 OCTOBER 2017 30 This Week What led you to collaborate with your father on this project? And how much of a collaboration was it, in fact? The book Dik il-Qtajra (The Droplet) was published in 1983, long before I was born. From an early age I used to pick this book and go through it. I always found it fascinating and at the same time rather shocking. It's the themes, the ideas and feel- ings in it rather than the book itself that have always fascinated me. This isn't a collaboration. The book is more an inspiration which led me to create a series of drawings and paintings based on the book's themes – anger, helplessness, violence, sarcasm, egocentricity. Much of what it said made me think about our origins, both as human beings and as individuals. Its strong in- sistence that our sexual drives and selfishness are molded in- to us from the very beginning resonated with me. No, my fa- ther and I never had any formal conversation about the book. It's more that I've always been aware of certain traits in human nature, as he has been. Why was your father's chapbook censored back in the '80s? And how do you both feel about returning to it now? Does it feel like Malta is truly 'ready' to embrace that which it had previously censored? It's a very small, short book, just 24 pages long, self-published, handwritten, and illustrated with doodle-type drawings. The public libraries refused to put it on their shelves. Bookshops refused to stock it, my father used to tell me. He used to go round bookshops himself and none of them would touch it with a bargepole. They were all afraid to sell it. One page they found especially shocking included a holy picture of the Virgin Mary where the unborn child is pleading to her to protect him, rather than protect his mother, during labour. They were shocked by the language used and some of the illustrations. I suppose things have changed a bit now. In fact, a couple of years ago, the Na- tional Library in Floriana asked my father for a copy. But in the early 80s I suppose we weren't prepared for such works, both as regards language and themes. However, my father says he used to give the book away for free and pass it on to friends, copies changed a lot of hands, and it became quite well- known in the 80s. To tell you the truth, I've always dreamt of resurrecting this book. It's a pity such an uncommon work never received the exposure it deserved. This is why I decided that for my third solo exhibition, I'd share my response to it with the pub- lic. I also felt this was the right time because I'm now close to the age my father was when he wrote the book. He was 22. I am 24. Is this the first time you're adapting words into images and if so, how did you find this process? Given that the book itself is already illustrated, how did you seek to make your own mark on it, as it were? It's not a question of adapting words into images but more of trying to capture the general mood of the book. I didn't set out to illustrate it anew, at least not for now. But I've always been haunted – or better still, hounded – by the themes in it. My father's personality emerges strongly in this book. It's there in his later works too, but unlike most of his other works, Dik il-Qtajra is not a play, so his essence is pal- pable here. Whereas in earlier exhibitions my works were based on reality, in this one they feed on fiction and the imagination. I tried to make these imagined moments look like snapshots, spontane- ous and transient. That's why there's a greater attention to the lines, which I've always loved a great deal. What themes and particular A quirky piece of juvenilia by a now- renowned local playwright, the 24-page chapbook – an illustrated blend of prose and poetry – Alfred Buttigieg's 'Dik il- Qtajra', first (self) published in 1983, is now being thrust back into the spotlight by his son Gabriel Buttigieg, whose upcoming exhibition takes its cue from his father's sexually explicit and somewhat nihilistic booklet Basking in the original sin Baby 2 (from Babies series) by Gabriel Buttigieg Dik il-Qtajra 1 (from Dik il-Qtajra series) by Gabriel Buttigieg Baby 6 (from Babies series) by Gabriel Buttigieg Gabriel Buttigieg: "Everything boils down to sex and the need to survive" DIk il-Qtajra 10 (from Dik il-Qtajra series) by Gabriel Buttigieg DIk il-Qtajra 12 (from Dik il-Qtajra series) DIk il-Qtajra 11 (from Dik il-Qtajra series) by Gabriel Buttigieg