Watch: ‘U Ħalluna!’: Elderly Man Tears Into New Statue Concealing Queen Victoria Monument
An elderly man slammed the temporary erection of an empty chair monument in the centre of Valletta to conceal a statue dedicated to Queen Victoria.
Upon spotting the new artwork, the man engaged in discussion with Jerome Farrugia, a royalist Maltese student who visited Valletta today to hand out fliers calling for the Queen Victoria monument to be respected.
“U ħalluna (oh leave us alone),” the man decried, as Farrugia explained the purpose of the new monument. “[The Queen Victoria statue] is one of our most beautiful monuments.”
He also pointed out that the statue, which was crafted by Sicilian artist Giuseppe Valenti and installed in 1891, depicts the late monarch wearing a shawl of traditional Maltese lace (bizzilla).
The temporary monument, called Siġġu, is the work of artist Austin Camilleri, who installed it in Republic Square as part of the Malta Biennale art festival.
It is a replica of the Queen Victoria marble monument but carved out of globigerina limestone that was quarried before 1974, the year Malta became a republic. Camilleri worked on a block of stone that was left unused by his grandfather, and in an act of artistic didacticism, worked on Siġġu in his grandfather’s studio.
The monument intends to “haunt our present and function as a medium to the past”, inciting Maltese people to think about a new future, question insular thinking, and forge our own identity.
What do you think of the new monument?
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