'WHEN IN ROME', A POLYPHONIC SITE INTERVENTION
MALTA CONTEMPORARY ART IN COLLABORATION
WITH THE STAEDLSCHULE, 2011
In the summer of 2011 Outset Germany supported a site-specific project, conceived by British artist Simon Starling. Following a visit to Malta in January, an international group of young artists studying at the Städelschule, Frankfurt with the British artist Simon Starling, have developed a collaborative project with the roving arts organisation Malta Contemporary Arts.
When In Rome was developed in relation to the complexity of Malta’s history, to it’s life as a tourist destination, to it’s current role as a set for a diverse range of film productions and further still, as a staging post for political and military responses to conflict ridden countries in neighbouring North Africa.
To be realised in Valletta, the world’s smallest capital city, When In Rome, took the form of a 3-day-long series of simultaneously performed actions that served to map the cities streets in different ways. Each of these actions was a re-enactment of a work made by another artist in a specific situation somewhere in the world over the last 40 years.
When performed simultaneously, overlaid within the confines of Valletta’s city walls, these re-enactments added to this already complex place, creating a cacophonic site - a layered and complex space within which to consider a contemporary understanding of what might constitute the very notion of a place.
WHEN IN ROME
A Polyphonic Site-Intervention in the World's Smallest Capital City
with
Khaled Barakeh
Benedikte Bjerre
Elisa Caldana
Oscar Carlson
Ann Cathrin November Høibo
Rasmus Johannsen
Vytautas Jurevicius
Patrick Keaveny
Aki Nagasaka
Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi
Filippa-Linn Pettersson
Beto Shawafaty
John Skoog
Simon Starling
Franziska von Stenglin
Jol Thomson
