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Design group MaltaType, made up of Dingli, Matt Demarco, and Katerina Karamallaki, have set up the exhibition to engender awareness of good design through historical study
Design group MaltaType, made up of Dingli, Matt Demarco, and Katerina Karamallaki, have set up the exhibition to engender awareness of good design through historical study

Valletta is being transformed into Malta’s vibrant cultural hub. With this welcome upheaval, however, the need to preserve the unique urban façades of the capital city’s old establishments has become critical.

Malta-based design group MaltaType is organising an exhibition on their study of shop sign production, as well as the typology and aesthetic of Valletta’s Strait Street signs, using them to create stylised prints of various shops.

The eponymously named exhibition will preserve the artefacts of Valletta’s modern history through a series of prints showing signs, shop fronts, and typography. The installation will lead from one room to the next, expanding on different aspects that constitute the process of designing and producing some of Valletta’s most iconic signs.Design_M

This project does not aim to emphasise reverting to past styles or practice, but to engender awareness of good design through historical study.

The exhibition is not intended to be a static event. Talks will focus on the history of design and the analysis of the aesthetic of the capital’s commercial establishments. Workshops will also take place, centring on the printing techniques used in the project. A main feature will be the launch of a newly-designed font created by MaltaType specifically for this event.Design_Type-Sketches

Preserving and studying past knowledge is key to generating innovative techniques. This project does not aim to emphasise reverting to past styles or practice, but to engender awareness of good design through historical study. Design is a rather young research topic in Malta, and a comprehensive study of local design is sorely needed as a baseline to build upon. The MaltaType exhibition is one such keystone. 

Design_CarmenbarMaltaType will run from 25 May until the following Sunday at Splendid in Strait Street, Valletta. The project is part of the annual artistic programme of the Strada Stretta Concept, a Valletta 2018 Foundation project. The artistic director is lecturer Dr Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci (University of Malta), and the exhibition is curated by Nikki Petroni, while the MaltaType designers are Ed Dingli, Matt Demarco, and Katerina Karamallaki. For more information: www.maltatype.com

Modern European sculpture

French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) is the progenitor of modern sculpture. He rebelled against idealised forms in order to express the inner truths of humanity in his artworks. His successors went on to challenge his work, continuing to explore the aesthetic revolution he had started. Key examples include Henry Moore (1898–1986), Alberto Giacometti and the largely undiscovered Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn (1920–2012).

Josef Kalleya, L'Abbandono della Casa Materna. Photograph of lost work (image courtesy of the Kalleya Family Archives)
Josef Kalleya, L’Abbandono della Casa Materna. Photograph of lost work (image courtesy of the Kalleya Family Archives)

These artists were studied alongside Maltese sculptor Josef Kalleya (1898–1998) at the conference entitled ‘Peripheral Alternatives to Rodin in Modern European Sculpture’ (December, 2015). The international speakers created significant links between works by renowned sculptors and Kalleya, who has been poorly understood by his contemporaries and is unknown outside Malta. Kalleya developed unique methods of creating photomontages alongside the innovative use of a knife to create powerful visceral incisions as a means of moulding his sculptures. He managed to create a new aesthetic.

The conference brought scholars from all over Europe to discuss these and other European sculptors. The scholars debated topics from the mutation of the human form to an artist’s sense of heritage. The event focused on pioneering sculptors who went beyond their current socio-political context. It also helped place Malta’s own Kalleya deservedly on the international map.

The conference and exhibition were organised by the Department of History of Art, Faculty of Arts, University of Malta. The events were convened by Dr Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci and curated by Nikki Petroni. Other participants included Dr Sophie Biass-Fabiani (Musée Rodin, Paris), Dr Jon Wood (Henry Moore Foundation, Leeds), Barbara Vujanović (Atelijer Meštrović, Zagreb), Dr Julia Kelly (Loughborough University), and Ulrich Meinherz (Kesselhaus Josephsohn, St Gallen).