Welcome to the land of dreamers; ephemeral, evanescent, fading. To dream of land is to dream of abundance, fertility, resilience. To dream of land is to imagine alternative and multiple futures, is to reconsider our relationship with time, is to stay with the trouble.

DREAM[of]LAND is an interdisciplinary exhibition project combining narratives of identity, belonging, and home through the blurred overlap of art-making and craft. It brings together a body of collective work exploring the tangible manipulation of matter through acts of weaving, moulding and sculpting, not only of conventional materials but of narratives, memories and legacies. The exhibition seeks to question and redefine the significance of matter and materiality, by regarding it as an active agent with its own historicity and potentiality for dreams and change.

Our connection with the land is intricately intertwined with the stories it holds, forming a symbiotic relationship with time. DREAM[of]LAND therefore explores the question; can we rebuild our connection with the land by reimagining our relationship with time? The exhibition continually traverses the boundaries of past, present, and future, encouraging us to destabilise our gaze by inviting us to consider the edges in the middle, where we once were one.

In this dreamland, the imaginary and ideal are both entangled and juxtaposed, whilst boundaries and binaries are blurred. The knowledge bearers and mothers of inventions of the past become inspiration for the future.

DREAM[of]LAND is a Spazju Kreattiv Commission, supported by Arts Council Malta, the Italian Cultural Institute in Malta and Culture Moves Europe – a project funded by the European Union.

Satellite Events

Prickly Affairs: from ingredient to material to lover with artist Dasha Tsapenko
Sunday 18th February 2024, 17:30 – 19:00 | Studio B
Through personal stories and artefacts of her (romantic) encounters with Opuntia ficus-indica, the Maltese Prickly Pear cactus, artist & bio-designer Dasha Tsapenko shares her practice and methodology of working in the intersection of (bio) fashion, agriculture and art.

Threads of Melite: Weaving Workshop

Date and time: Saturday 16th March 2024, 11am – 1pm
Host: Alda Bugeja/Sephora Schembri
Type: Workshop/Presentation
Category: Weaving
Venue: Atrium
Age group: 18-30

Sephora Schembri together with Gozitan weaver Alda Bugeja will guide the participants through the art of weaving and natural dyeing, ancestral practices passed on through generations. Using a DIY loom, the participants will get to explore weaving using hand-washed and hand-spun local sheep wool and locally-grown cotton.

DREAM [of] LAND: Curatorial Tour and Book Launch

Date and time: Wednesday 3rd April 2024, 6.30pm – 8pm
Host: Elyse and Sarah
Event type: Curatorial Tour and Book Launch
Venue: Spazju A

DREAM[of]LAND extends its dream beyond the temporality of the exhibition space, through word and the calligraphic gesture, collectively mapping a cartography of the Mediterranean. The authors in this publication continue to dream of alternative and multiple futures, encouraging us to destabilise our gaze, where the imaginary and ideal are both entangled and juxtaposed.

Authors: noah fabri (MT) fernando p. ferreira (PT) fatima a.m. (MLT/EG) omar n’shea (MT) christina skapari (CYRP) noura abdelhafidh (TN) benedetta carpi de resmini (IT)

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Writing [with] Land: Literary Landscapes and Spaces of the Anthropocene

Date and time: Saturday 13th April 2024, 11am – 1pm
Host: Noah Fabri
Type: Workshop
Category: Writing
Venue: Space A
Age group: 18+

A workshop on landscape writing in the contemporary world. How can we listen to and tell the stories of landscapes that have been transformed by global political and economic processes? I invite participants to closely read a few extracts from writings on these edge spaces, as well as to write and create together.

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Care [in] ClayLands

Date and time: Sunday 21st April 2024, 11am
Host: LaLaLa Collective
Type: Workshop
Category: Movement/Clay
Venue: Exhibition Venue
Age group: 18+

A ritual to mark the end of the Dream (of) Land exhibition as a feminist gesture of care: participants will be guided through sensorial dialogues with the 2-tonne clay structure before collectively splitting it up into multiple bodies. They will have the option to take home a piece of clay.

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Creative Team:

Artists:
Francesca Beltrame
Noah Fabri
LaLaLa Collective
Femmy Otten
Florence Peake
Sephora Schembri
Dasha Tsapenko
Rakel Vella

Curators:
Elyse Tonna & Sarah Chircop

Project Manager:
Margarita Pulè