Malta’s urban landscape is constantly evolving, but what is being lost in the process?

A Place That Fades, a new exhibition by Giola Cassar, curated by Elyse Tonna, examines the vanishing presence of urban domestic gardens and the cultural, psychological, and ecological impact of their disappearance.

Opening at MUŻA in Valletta from 5th April to 8th May 2025, the exhibition reflects on how green spaces that once served as sites of refuge and cohabitation are gradually fading due to urbanisation and privatisation.

Over the past months, Cassar has been granted access to private gardens, collecting and documenting fallen leaves and overlooked remnants of nature. By assembling this fragile archive, she gives voice to the non-human world, highlighting the gradual erasure of urban green spaces.

Her work moves beyond simple documentation, exploring gardens as more than cultivated landscapes, but as ephemeral spaces shaped by cycles of time, memory, and ecological transitions.

The exhibition raises pressing questions: What remains when these spaces are lost? What is remembered, what is erased, and what, if anything, can still be reclaimed?

As urban expansion continues to reshape Malta’s environment, places that once nurtured both human and non-human life are becoming increasingly inaccessible.

A Place That Fades considers the tension between permanence and impermanence, visibility and disappearance, and how gardens—both real and remembered—persist in personal and collective memory.

By engaging with themes of ephemerality, fragmentation, and ecological transition, Cassar’s work does not simply mourn what is being lost, but also invites viewers to reconsider their relationship with spaces that are slowly fading from the urban landscape.

A Place That Fades opens to the public on 5th April 2025 at MUŻA – Community Art Museum in Valletta, with an opening event on 4th April from 6-8pm. The exhibition is supported by APS Bank, MCAST & Optima.

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