Malta’s London Design Biennale 2025 Team And Project ‘URNA’ Announced
The team set to represent Malta at the London Design Biennale in 2025 has been announced, and so has their project.
“URNA is an innovative project exploring the fascinating and distinctive subject of cremation. This proposal perfectly exemplifies and merges design innovation and creativity. It is bold, stimulating and far-reaching, beyond the idea of simply “art”,” stated Arts Council Malta.
The team consists of designers, architects, curators and art directors, including names such as Anthony Bonnici, whose projects include those with Kanye West and CELINE as part of Ebejer Bonnici Architecture, Andrew Borg Wirth, whose curation involved exhibitions at the Valletta Contemporary and the Malta Society of Arts, and Matthew Attard Navarro, whose clients include JW Anderson, ZARA, and Stella McCartney.
Stephanie Sant, a filmmaker, writer and performer, as well as junior architect and multidisciplinary creative Thomas Mifsud are also forming part of the team. They will be joined by Cypriot designer Tanil Raif and French photographer and curator Anne Immelé.
The project anticipates the introduction of cremation in the Maltese Islands, putting forward a new way of handling human remains. It aims at re-establishing death as a symbolic ceremony.
URNA will take the form of a geometrical construction of large boulders encapsulating cremated remains, inviting diverse cultural interpretations.
The project will be led by Romina Delia, International Executive at Arts Council Malta and will be supported by Celine Portelli, who takes care of coordination, and Frank Psaila, who looks after PR and Marketing International Projects.
London Design Biennale 2025 will be held from 5th-29th June, at the historic Somerset House, under the theme of ‘Surface Reflections’.
Will you be following their project?