Modern Realities
Mgarr ix-Xini Valley Regional Park: Where Culture Meets Nature
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session George Azzopardi
The Mġarr ix-Xini valley on the central Mediterranean island of Gozo (near Malta) boasts of incomparable natural and cultural assets. In fact, it is endowed with unique geological formations, flora and fauna, and eco-systems. The valley has also undergone an interesting formation process which has ultimately contributed to its present shape and unique characteristics. But for the last two millennia, the valley was also an arena for human activity concentrated on cultivation and processing of agricultural products, irrigation systems, pastoralism, and stone extraction. Towards the end of the ninteenth century and during the first half of the twentieth century, the valley witnessed also industrial water extraction. All this anthropogenic activity rendered the valley landscape a very dynamic one. Recent archaeological excavations and surveys commissioned by the neighbouring Sannat and Xewkija Local Councils and conducted in the valley by the University of Malta and the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage not only confirmed but even further enriched the knowledge about the rich natural and cultural assets with which the valley is endowed. As a result of this fieldwork, also supplemented by studies of comparable Mediterranean sites, the natural dynamics of the valley but, more especially, the valley's economic role in respect of the attached community/ies over the centuries became more apparent. For this reason, the above-mentioned Local Councils saw it fitting to embark on a joint project aimed to turn the valley into a regional park where nature and culture complement each other for the benefit of humankind. This will be the concept behind a new visitors’ centre incorporating a museum bringing out the important natural and cultural aspects of the valley at the service of human society informed by the rich data gathered through the archaeological excavations and surveys (which are also due to be published)and aided by similar data gathered from comparable Mediterranean sites. Likewise informed by the said data, other least intrusive facilities will be also set up along established walkways to supplement and complement the visitors' centre and its museum in the same role.
City as a Curated Space
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tammy Wong Hulbert
My research on the city as a curated space considers the notion of expanded curation and reframes the city as a site that can be read and interpreted as a space for artistic activity. It proposes a distributed model of exhibition practices, encouraging a renewed and meaningful engagement with urban spaces and a potential methodology for applying creative urbanism in globalising cities. Through the increasing cultural diversity of our urban communities, the research proposes that the arts can act as a platform for navigating the diversity by creating opportunities for cross-cultural engagement and connection between individuals and encourage inclusive communities through creative and imaginative methods. Through this research framework, I will present a series of practice-based research projects, investigating how curating the city has engaged with various urban communities in Suzhou, China, and Melbourne, Australia.
Architecture of Emptiness in Favelas : Green Walls and Indigenous Graphism at Macquinho, Morro do Palácio, Brazil
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dinah Tereza Papi de Guimaraens
In collaboration with the Urban Digital Platform of MACquinho at Niterói City Hall, the project emphasizes a critical urban reading that elects the city as a laboratory and field of digital experimentation. Localized experiences of changing public spaces from new architectural interventions of Green Walls and Indigenous Graphic Design in empty spaces of Morro do Palácio prioritizes the interpretation of reflexive exercise in critical self-assessment through microplanning prototypes. Digital architectural academics´ design also analyses typical constructions of indigenous cultures (“ocas” or longhouses), by focusing on the importance of bottom-up initiatives in urban landscape setting. The tactic of the project focuses on the survey of a CONCRETE SPACE / CONTEXT defined by hollow occupations - emptiness as spaces that form an urban waste beneath viaducts, alleys, elevated streets, pillars, sheds, and iron fences closing the space. It will cast its gaze along networks that represent instigating examples of how population spontaneously transforms, sometimes transgressively, and situating technical artifacts into active places for political-cultural participation and for playful-creative manifestations, with the creation of urban gardens. The proposal also prioritizes the public domain in specific scopes of urbanism as being composed of places where the exchange between different social groups becomes possible and where everyday life actually happens.
Safeguarding Tangible Heritage in Socially Deprived Areas: The Role that Can be Played by Small Museums
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jos Ann Cutajar
Communities have incisive knowledge and understanding of place. In this study, a feminist ethnographic approach was used to demonstrate how essential it is to return community regeneration ‘to its proper function: as providing people with decent cities to live, work and leisure in’ (Blackshaw 2012: 185). This paper traces how the curator of a small private museum teamed up with a residents' association in a socially deprived area in Malta to preserve tangible heritage in an area dubbed as a ‘slum’. This label is often used to legitimize the destruction of old buildings to make way for social housing blocks in an area with a concentration of this type of housing. Concentration of social housing in one area leads to the stigmatization of that area (Tunstall et al. 2013). Tangible heritage empowers residents. However, this heritage is often at risk whenever a regeneration project is in the pipeline since policy makers often question what is worth saving in a ‘slum’. When a booming economy led to housing shortage, a group of residents and the curator of a small museum negotiated with policy makers who were intent in building another social housing block without safeguarding the tangible heritage in the area. This paper will delineate how the place narratives held by residents, policy makers and developers interacted and explicate when and how small museums can be used to safeguard heritage in socially beleaguered areas.
