Euronews Culture sat down with Edith Devaney, artistic director of the newly inaugurated Malta International Contemporary Arts Space (MICAS), to discuss the opening of a new chapter for the Maltese art scene. “It'll be so fascinating to see how the public are going to approach it, because they've never experienced anything quite like this,” says Devaney. Indeed, watching as fireworks thundered over the 17th-century fortifications on the edge of Valletta – where MICAS now finds its home – in celebration of the museum’s opening on Friday night (25 October), something felt very clear: whatever your feelings on the importance of contemporary art, this was a big moment for .
Together with Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela and Minister for the National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government Owen Bonnici, as well as MICAS executive chairperson Phyllis Muscat, acclaimed Portuguese artist opened the space with her exhibition ‘Transcending the Domestic’. The show features her signature large-scale installations – which the artist encouraged visitors to get up close and personal with, imploring them to feel the textures of her colossal suspended (2020) installation and towering (2023), with its 110,000 hand-stitched fabric leaves – and a palpable sense of fun, something Vasconcelos uses as an entryway to tackle deeper topics: here, for example, climate change, Portugal’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, and the connection of the earthly to the spiritual. “.
