A performance installation to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Malta’s national poet Dun Karm Psaila. Taking place on the famous Strada Stretta, in Splendid House, Malta, performances were spread across several rooms and encompassed a wide range of Dun Karm’s poetry. Four performers presented their reflections as part of this installation. 

Dun Karm spent days of solitude in his home in Valletta, from which emerged a series of patriotic sonnets with spiritual references. The installation revisits Malta’s heritage, re-envisioning the concept of gender on Dun Karm Psaila’s behalf, from a time when religion and politics stringently shaped the dominant social culture. 

photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

“Visitors could walk through, stop, linger, and return at will. Though very diverse work was enacted in each room, one did not leave with a sense of cacophony or disorientation, but rather the opposite.”

Canaries Fallen Silent – The Times, Wednesday 16, 2011
Director 
Jimmy Grima 
Co-Director 
Rebecca Camilleri 
Performers 
Chris Galea 
Mavin Khoo 
Jacob Piccinino 
Ninette Micallef 
Sound Designer & Composer 
Mario Sammut 
Visual Artist 
Matthew Pandolfino 
Writings
Simon Sultana Harkins 

Collaboratively produced with mavinkhoo dance 

Commission of The Ministry of Education; Employment and the Family

Performed at 74, Splendid, Strait Street, Valletta on the 13th November 2011 for 4 hours.