Approaching Valletta
It's a windy June morning. Little gusts bend the olive trees and make them whistle. The harbour that until now had been still and reflective is ruffled by choppy waves, but not enough to perturb the mega-material white hyper-yachts berthed prominently before the palimpsest sandstone city.
This year's group has been approaching Valletta for some time now. From the class preparations to the logistical arrangements, AUC Culture Lab has been building the programme for its encounter with one of this year's cities designated as the European Capital of Culture. We've added some texts that prepare us to engage with the 'ambivalent Europeans' through tracing the entanglements of Nico Carpentier's discursive-material knot, spent a week filling our metaphorical suitcase with concepts, objects and methodologies, and, yesterday, took steps and buses to make our entrance.
The triton fountain area at the city gate has been renovated as part of the year's infrastructural works and, beyond the jumbled hub of buses displaced in the process, the cleaned-up modernist maritime statement it makes about strength and movement is one of the first impressions visitors (are designed to) receive as they/we enter the space-time of Valletta 2018.
There's a sense of openness up here, but just further is the drawbridge that takes us in to the shady alleys of the historical centre. Here, though, we see for the first time the thematic sculptures that will pepper the city streets with embodiments of the sayings and saws of local culture. In white fibre, like the yacht, animals and people mutate into surreal shapes to capture the folklore and share it with the event audiences and locals alike: surreal sometimes, literalised common sense. Prickly pears, chickens and dreams of flat loaves. I have fun guessing the wisdom from the shape alone. If you are piling your cows, remember to put the smallest one on top.
Over the drawbridge, the cheesegrater parliament, undisputed champion stars, and the tourist melange of tangible and distinctive heritage, lowest common denominator retail outlets, and the soundscape and sensorium of a soon more familiar city await.
Later in the day, outside the fundamental contemporary art exhibition hidden deep and high in an ancient vault, a Rai Uno camera team waits patiently, the cameramen taking their contemplative fag breaks, the journalist checking her notes and regularly sweeping her long hair away from her face. As we move on to the next shady spot more and tales of the baroque, she begins to speak in Italian about refugees, and I remember other approaches to this small island.
This year's group has been approaching Valletta for some time now. From the class preparations to the logistical arrangements, AUC Culture Lab has been building the programme for its encounter with one of this year's cities designated as the European Capital of Culture. We've added some texts that prepare us to engage with the 'ambivalent Europeans' through tracing the entanglements of Nico Carpentier's discursive-material knot, spent a week filling our metaphorical suitcase with concepts, objects and methodologies, and, yesterday, took steps and buses to make our entrance.
The triton fountain area at the city gate has been renovated as part of the year's infrastructural works and, beyond the jumbled hub of buses displaced in the process, the cleaned-up modernist maritime statement it makes about strength and movement is one of the first impressions visitors (are designed to) receive as they/we enter the space-time of Valletta 2018.
There's a sense of openness up here, but just further is the drawbridge that takes us in to the shady alleys of the historical centre. Here, though, we see for the first time the thematic sculptures that will pepper the city streets with embodiments of the sayings and saws of local culture. In white fibre, like the yacht, animals and people mutate into surreal shapes to capture the folklore and share it with the event audiences and locals alike: surreal sometimes, literalised common sense. Prickly pears, chickens and dreams of flat loaves. I have fun guessing the wisdom from the shape alone. If you are piling your cows, remember to put the smallest one on top.
Over the drawbridge, the cheesegrater parliament, undisputed champion stars, and the tourist melange of tangible and distinctive heritage, lowest common denominator retail outlets, and the soundscape and sensorium of a soon more familiar city await.
Later in the day, outside the fundamental contemporary art exhibition hidden deep and high in an ancient vault, a Rai Uno camera team waits patiently, the cameramen taking their contemplative fag breaks, the journalist checking her notes and regularly sweeping her long hair away from her face. As we move on to the next shady spot more and tales of the baroque, she begins to speak in Italian about refugees, and I remember other approaches to this small island.
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