Malta Design Week

When it come to culture and art in general, one of the biggest drawbacks of living on this rock is the lack of local organisations that can put and organise large scale events of an international level. Yes, we do have the occasional concert and the Malta Arts Festival but we still lack behind to mainland Europe.  It could be the lack of funds and resources, it could be the lack of creativity or god knows what but there is still much more that can be done to promote contemporary art in Malta.

One step in the right direction, is the Malta Design Week, a 7-day event that will take place in the first week of October. The event is spread across a number of venues, and the list of activities range from exhibitions, talks, workshops to launches. It aims to to bring together local and foreign designers, architects, artists, artisans, journalists, critics, academics and entrepreneurs. The list of events is impressive (have a look HERE) but more so are the aims of the event, quoting from their site

1. Act as a vital contribution in developing a healthy relationship between local manufacturing businesses and designers, putting them in closer contact with the realities of the international market.

2. Initiate a vessel of communication between art organisations and tourism-related entities promoting cultural tourism, with images of a creative Malta at its roots.

3. Develop a healthy Euro-Med exchange of ideas at Universities, schools and formative entities with other countries in the Mediterranean region, in order to determine and develop study methods and teaching resources about the role of design in contemporary culture.

What the team behind MDM has managed to bring together shows that these kind of events can be done locally and there is room for them. I truly hope that this event turns out to be a huge success; to the MDM team, GOODLUCK!

For more info please visit http://www.maltadesignweek.com/

David Paquette

David Paquette will be performing live at the Palm Court Lounge, Hotel Phoenicia, Floriana, on Thursday 22nd, Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th September 2011, from 8pm to 10:30pm. The performance, titled Spirtupront is part of a collaborative event with Rupert Cefai, for more information please visit

http://rupertcefaiblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/spirtupront-translating-jazz-into.

more info on David can be found here http://www.waihekejazz.co.nz/david.html

spirtupront - translating jazz into colour

Art is a lonely place. As an artist you spend most of your time on your own tucked up in your own studio, working on your own and meeting few people. I'm not complaining but this is the nature of my work.

So whenever an opportunity comes along, I'm always keen to work on some collaborative project with other artists. In this respect this happens to be quite a busy period. At the moment I am working on a couple of big collaborative projects that should be on next year and also preparing for an interesting project with jazz musician/singer David Paquette.

Thursday 22nd, Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th September2011, from 8pm to 10:30pm David and myself will be performing live at the Phoenicia Hotel, Floriana Malta;  David on his piano and I will be interpreting David's jazz using paint and canvas. 3 consecutive nights of impromptu music and painting. The paintings produced during the sessions will remain on display at the Phoenicia Hotel for the following week. Hope to see you there.

this event is free

to keep updated on this event please visit the facebook event page https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=209051809155985

Back

This is the last day of August, what I consider to be the last day of summer season. Tomorrow is the 1st day of September, the official start of the Sticky Season. Always hated this month. Some years back I even wrote a blog post on why I hate September. Quoting myself

And what about the name? I can forgive October, November and December for not being the eighth, ninth and tenth month respectively but I could never forgive September for not being the seventh. Why call yourself the seventh when you are ninth? This pretentious month is why October, November and December are confused. Its like being at the butcher’s. If you ask who is last and some ugly guy says “its me and I’m the seventh”, you assume that if you should be served after he is then you are eighth.

Ah well, now to some serious stuff. Did you know that Dolphins Rape Humans? at least this is what they are claiming over at Hyperallergic.com. If interested in the topic read HERE 

Artibus 021

Dynamism of a football player

There is neither painting, nor sculpture, nor music, nor poetry. The only truth is creation. - Umberto Boccioni