MEDITERRANEAN islands
Arts and Science Project
ABOUT
concept
Marlands is a project initiated in 2022 and co-founded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union. Its purpose is to address sustainability development within the cultural sector and contribute to environmental preservation efforts.
MARLANDS is a community of contemporary artists and researchers united to address cultural and ecological issues across the Mediterranean islands. This project aims to implement collaborations between arts and sciences to raise awareness across Europe of islands. Our goal is to create and implement specific methodologies of cooperation that offer concrete solutions to residents, wildlife and ecosystems.
It builds on the existing scientific and artistic projects by individuals and groups who have already been working on the region.
Our goal is to cultivate and amplify the work of the selected artists and scientists by creating links with an existing body of work and give them more visibility for the public and professional community.
This web platform broadens the reach of their research, methodologies and reflections that address environmental and social problems throughout the Mediterranean in order to effect change through collective endeavors. We also seek to raise awareness of both the rich and important cultural heritage in the Mediterranean, but also the vibrancy and variety of contemporary practices.
We invite all artists and scientists who work in the Mediterranean to take part in this project by sending us your work and research (under the contact section of our website).
This year 2022-2023 we invite you to join us as we embark upon this journey and to follow along with the explorations of contemporary artists, curators and researchers from different disciplines and fields.
Conceived as an international art and science biennale at the end of the residencies, artists’ collaborations with scientists are presented in a variety of different exhibitions, talks, workshops, and conferences, both on the involved islands themselves and throughout Europe.
Main venues for the 1st edition are: Es Baluard, a contemporary art museum in Mallorca, Spazju Kreattiv, a cultural center in Malta, and the Isola Catania, a creative hub in Sicily.
The methodology of 2022-2023 is initiating collaborations between contemporary artists, local artists from the islands involved and scientists before any field-work begins, we also hope to propose a new model of artistic residencies that will privilege careful planning and implementation through an online/offline format, as well as to limit our carbon footprint.
The onsite part of the residencies, following initial online exchanges between participants, teams up international researchers and artists with local artists and community members. During their time on-site, each artist creates a prototype (original work) and a protocol (instructions for reproduction) of their artwork in collaboration with artists from their chosen island for assembly/activation on another island. This methodology displaces the genius loci of the different partner islands into their neighbor’s environments, thereby challenging assumptions about site-specific installations and performance.
missions and goals
MARLANDS aims to promote the healthy coexistence of Mediterranean culture with its natural environment. The Mediterranean islands are treasures that represent the basin’s natural diversity and are also the places with the most vulnerable ecosystems. Through art-science collaborations we aim to activate and foster interest in the cultural sector on islands that have been threatened by their isolation from the continent, especially due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its consequences. We work to promote interdisciplinary, eco-friendly methods of art production through cooperation between artists, scientists, locals and cultural institutions on our partner islands: Malta, Sicily, Mallorca, Cyprus, and Corsica.
Timeline
MARLANDS began in June 2022. After the open calls were closed, the selected artists began a two-stage artistic residency, including an online component of seminars and initial exchanges in July and August and on-site work in September and October. The artistic residencies are dedicated to nurturing interdisciplinary and collaborative art projects on each of the partner islands. We invite you to follow along with our artists-in-residence as they share their experiences and explorations (see Artists’ Diaries).
Beginning in December 2022, artists will exhibit their work, first on the partner island and then in continental Europe. Specific exhibition dates, events and symposiums will be announced on our social media accounts.
A jury of internal and external curators assembled to select the winning artists. Members of our internal jury include: Mariagrazia Pontorno (Sicily), Vince Briffa (Malta), and Elena Posokhova (Mallorca), and the external jurors are as follows: Christina Baron (Musée National de la Marine, Toulon, France), Yvannoé Kruger (Poush Manifesto, Paris, France), Carlos Duran (LOOP Festival & Galeria Senda, Barcelona, Spain), Ines Musumeci Greco (Acqua Foundation, Rome & Palermo, Italy), Alex Vaysse (Galerie Sono, Paris, France), Elisa Carollo (Fondazione Imago Mundi, Milan, Italy & New York, USA), Christina Pomilla (Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, Mallorca, Spain).
