Artist-curators Bettina Hutschek and Raphael Vella take readers on a poetic journey through the volatile territories of national and cultural identity?territories whose maps require a perpetual redrawing of borders, imaginaries, and conceptual frameworks. With its colonial past, unique geographic bearings, and hybrid linguistic and cultural traits, the Mediterranean island of Malta provides them with the ideal location to begin such a journey. In spite of the smallness of the island, Homo Melitensis?Maltese man?is hardly an endangered species, and the book?s abecedary presents ample proof of the rich, complex, and continuing history of a people that proudly extends to diasporic communities far beyond their land of origin. The book?s diverse outlook on the subject, characterized by its engagement of authors, artists, and travelogues from within and outside this Mediterranean archipelago, also brings to the fore the mythmaking and occasionally divisive, even violent nature of affiliations and loyalties. Exhibition: Malta Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Italy (13.05. - 26.11.2017).
