Spazju Kreattiv regularly invites creatives from all fields for an immersive and community-based artist-in-residence program that intends to be a catalyst for contemporary art in Malta and allow for international collaboration.
For this reason, we are proud to sponsor the participation of Claudio Beorchia, an interdisciplinary and site-responsive artist who often recurs to relational and participatory practices.
During his residency in Malta, Claudio aims to delve into the complex relationship between humanity and the Mediterranean Sea.
Claudio intends to highlight this contrast by focusing on the names of boats that navigate Malta’s waters. These names often evoke mythological figures and heroic tales, bridging ancient narratives with modern perceptions. Through direct engagement with the local community, Claudio hopes to revive and share this rich maritime imagery, fostering a renewed collective consciousness about the sea’s enduring significance.
Claudio Beorchia is an interdisciplinary and site-responsive artist who often recurs to relational and participatory practices. He studied Design and Visual Arts at the Iuav University of Venice and furthered his studies in New Media Arts thanks to a scholarship at the Brera Academy in Milan; he earned his doctorate in Design Sciences at the Iuav Doctoral School, focusing on the design of learning situations and educational environments.
Active since 2010, personal exhibitions and projects include: “Com sonen aquests llocs?”, Museo Mucbe, Benicarlò, Spain, 2023; “Characters and Spaces”, Artists Unlimited Gallery, Bielefeld, Germany, 2023; “Tell me a river”, K18 Gallery, Maribor, Slovenia, 2021; “Signals and Words”, XPO Gallery, Enschede, Netherlands, 2020; “Between Heaven and Earth”, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Milan, Italy, 2019-2020; “Aurale” Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, 2019. His works have been included in group exhibitions in venues such as: Palazzo della Triennale, Palazzo Reale and Hangar Bicocca in Milan; Scuderie del Quirinale and Mercati di Traiano in Rome.
He has participated in about 30 residency programs. Many programs have taken place in Italy and more abroad: in the United States, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and then in Albania, Bulgaria, China, Finland, Japan, Greece, Slovenia, Spain, Hungary, North Macedonia.
Here’s a short interview with the artist:
1) Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am an Italian artist, I live in the Veneto region, not far from Venice. I am an interdisciplinary and site-responsive artist who often recurs to relational and participatory practices.
2) Tell us a bit about your art practice and what inspires you.
My interdisciplinary approach and my interest in specific contexts and environments has always linked me to art residencies, especially residencies that invite artists to relate to unique and peculiar environments. The residency is my privileged way of working. I don’t have a studio, but I try to immerse myself in different contexts, in contact with places and people that can stimulate ideas and bring new projects to life. So what inspires me is what is outside, what is around me, the elements of the environment and community in which I interact.
3) What do you hope to achieve with your residency in Malta?
During the residency, I would like to develop a project deeply related to the Mediterranean Sea and the ancestral and millennial relationship that humans have with the sea.
Malta is located at the centre of an important sea, rich in history and legendary as the Mediterranean. But this imagery of it is rather far removed from contemporary times, in which the sea is understood more as an infrastructure for transporting goods and people, as an economic resource, as a border, and as a backdrop for tourist images. Today, of that legendary dimension, traces curiously remain in the names of the boats that cross the sea, recalling mythological creatures and natural forces, powerful and beautiful female figures, heroic and brave deeds.
Thanks to the residency, I will try to evoke this imagery precisely from the names of the boats that ply Malta’s waters during my stay on the island. And, to do so, I will directly involve the inhabitants and the community, promoting a renewed and shared awareness of the relationship between man and the sea.
COLLATERAL EVENT
CLAUDIO BEORCHIA AT THE MALTA MEDITERRANEAN LITERATURE FESTIVAL
AUGUST 30 | 19:00-20:00 | | MCAST, Paola
In Malta, Claudio is working on a project deeply related to the Mediterranean Sea and the ancestral and millennial relationship that humans have with this body of water. The starting point of his research is the names of the boats that cross the Mediterranean. Boats usually have important names, recalling mythological creatures and natural forces, powerful and beautiful female figures, and heroic and brave deeds. A world of names that evokes a sea quite different from today’s sea, understood in a practical and productive way as infrastructure, economic resource, border.
During the 2024 Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival, Claudio will talk about the importance of text in his artistic practice and he will present a preview of the project he is working on in Malta.
More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/353629107794475?ref=newsfeed
