The ‘In-Between’ exhibition is featuring two works by two artists, Materja by Scerri and What you left behind by Schembri. 

Materja is a body of work that reflects on the materiality of life; what comes before and what follows. It seeks to question our understanding of life, consciousness and the beliefs surrounding these.

It further addresses the in-between states of asleep and awake, death and life, and consciousness and unconsciousness. These in-between states are ambiguous in nature and this is reflected in the work on various levels.

This ambivalence is reflected conceptually, in the forms depicted as well as the way the work is perceived. The artworks cannot be seen directly; the detail and materiality of the work are lost. This reflects the dichotomy between the physical and the intangible, life and afterlife, and consciousness and unconsciousness.

What you left behind is a performative art installation dedicated to touch. As the title suggests, the work mainly concerns itself with what the visitors leave behind after their presence in the art exhibition space, made up of two rooms.

In the first one, more than 700 glasses of wine are placed on the table. Like in pre-COVID-19, traditional art exhibition openings, visitors are invited to take one each. However, a chemical powder is applied to certain parts of the wine glasses to document the visitors’ hand prints – prints which can only be seen under ultraviolet light.

Therefore, visitors are encouraged to leave these glasses in the UV-lit wine racks in the next room, revealing their hand prints for them to see.

The exhibition is running until 4th September at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta. 

Photos by: Etienne Farrell

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