Book Launch: Phase & Occasion: Art & Poetry in Malta
10 July 2025, 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
RSVP recommended here
https://forms.gle/mqs76jMfWhHLRZxv5
6:00pm - Doors open
6:30pm - Introductory note by Ivan Callus
6:40pm - Poetry readings by Maria Theuma, Immanuel Mifsud, Rachelle Deguara, Sam Alekksandra & Adrian Grima
Norbert Francis Attard, Ivan Callus and Maria Theuma will be present on the evening, accompanied by many of the poets
Entrance is free
VALLETTA CONTEMPORARY
15, 16, 17, East Street, Valletta
Phase and Occasion: Art & Poetry in Malta
Poetry Anthology
Is this an art book? Or is it a poetry anthology? Or is it both - or not quite either?
Think of Phase and Occasion as an exploration of the reciprocities of art and poetry, and the generosity of each towards the other. The poetry it gives space to, by writers mostly from Malta but also from elsewhere, enables a retrospective look at the art of Norbert Francis Attard. That is because Attard's art is what the poems here, stretching from the seventies to the present, are in dialogue, sometimes in contention, with. It is therefore tempting to see the turns of phase - and the play of occasion and encounter - across and between Attard's art and the evolving tradition of Maltese poetry mapping themselves onto each other. Would this be correct? Yes - and no. It is why there is much to think on here: about art, poetry, their affinities and differences - and more besides.
The anthology includes contributions from, Joe Friggieri, Anton Buttigieg, Mario Azzopardi, Claudio Fiorentini, Caesar Attard, Claudia Gauci, Simone Inguanez, Maria Grech Ganado, Michael Zammit, Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, Richard England, Maria Mangion, Marlene Saliba, Mario Griscti, Damian Ebejer, Victor Fenech, John Kinsella, David Campbell, Christopher Brennan, Les Murray, John Shaw Nielson, Bruce Dawe, Maria Theuma, Sam Alekksandra, Immanuel Mifsud, Adrian Grima, Antoine Cassar, Rachelle Deguara, Nadia Mifsud, John Mifsud, and Ivan Callus.
This publication is introduced by Prof. Ivan Callus and edited by Dr. Maria Theuma. Prof. Ivan Callus is a professor of English at the University of Malta, where he teaches courses in contemporary fiction and literary criticism. Dr. Maria Theuma is a researcher and artist with an interdisciplinary practice. Her research interests cover posthumanism, feminist literary theory, comparative literature and contemporary aesthetics.
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Born in Malta in 1951. Based on the island of Gozo (Malta) and since 2010 in Berlin (Germany).
Norbert Francis Attard started as a self-taught painter and graphic artist before turning to installation art in 1998. He graduated in Architecture from the University of Malta in 1977, practicing the profession as architect for twenty years until 1996. He lived in Germany in 1978/1979 working with the firm ‘Licht in Raum’, directed by Johannes Dinnebier, one of Germany’s pioneers in light design. Attard now focuses on a contemporary art practice that incorporates architecture, sculpture, photography, video and installation, to explore his major interests in places and their memories. He blurs the boundaries of these disciplines to incorporate the irreducible physicality of sites, and to explore their sedimented multiple layers of memory, treating them as a product of place, of social interaction, and as a generative process.
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This publication was partially funded by the National Book Council's Malta Book Fund 2024.
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