The annual Valletta 2018 international conference on Cultural Relations in Europe and the Mediterranean returns with its second conference, titled “Cultural Mapping: Debating Spaces and Places” on the 22nd and 23rd October at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta.
The conference is being organised following last April’s launch of the online map www.culturemapmalta.com – which exhibits the data collected during the first phase of the Cultural Mapping project, led by the Valletta 2018 Foundation. Bringing together a number of international academics, researchers, cultural practitioners and artists, the conference will explore various exercises of cultural mapping taking place across the world. With the subject being relatively new to Malta, speakers will be discussing the role of cultural mapping within the fields of cultural policy, artistic practice, heritage and cultural identity, amongst others.
Speakers include experts, academics, researchers and activists within the fields of tangible and intangible heritage, sustainable development, and cultural policy, both across Europe and the Mediterranean. Keynote speeches will be delivered by Prof. Pier Luigi Sacco, a cultural economist who will be presenting examples of cultural mapping taking place in Italy and Sweden, and Dr Aadel Essaadani, the Chairperson of the Arterial Network, a Morocco-based organisation that brings together art and culture practitioners across the African continent.
The conference will also feature a series of parallel sessions, allowing researchers from across the globe to present examples of cultural mapping taking place in various European and non-European contexts. Parallel sessions will explore a broad range of issues, including the use of innovative digital technology within cultural mapping, the role of cultural mapping in participatory community-based work, and cultural mapping as a tool within artistic practice. Highlights include presentations of cultural mapping exercises taking place in Palestine, New York and Hong Kong, as well as in Malta and across Europe and the Mediterranean. The conference will be complemented by a site-specific installation by artist Trevor Borg and a series of short film screenings developed by conference presenters.
The first conference in this series, titled “Dialogue in the Med: exploring identity through networks” was held in September 2014, and brought together academics, researchers and cultural operators from across the Mediterranean to debate issues related to cultural mobility and networking. Proceedings from this conference will be published in due course.
‘Cultural Mapping: Debating Spaces & Places” was the second conference within this series. This conference was held on the 22nd & 23rd October 2015 at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta.
The conference included two plenary sessions, a speed networking session, to further increase networking opportunities, eight parallel sessions, and various other complementary events, including a site-specific installation and two short film screenings.
The full conference programme can be downloaded here: Cultural Mapping Debating Spaces & Places programme
The conference outcomes can be accessed here: Cultural Mapping – Debating Spaces & Places – Outcomes
Subjective Maps is about people designing their own map of the town they live and work in. People come together in a workshop setting to draw maps, tell their stories and meet each other. The project then produces maps that can be used by others to visit and navigate the town.
Subjective Maps will be collected from six different localities in Malta and Gozo, including Valletta, St Paul’s Bay, Ħamrun, Birżebbuġa, Gżira, Victoria (Gozo).
The earliest maps were ‘story’ maps. Cartographers were artists who mingled knowledge with supposition, memory and fears. Their maps described both landscape and the events, which had taken place within it, enabling travelers to plot a route as well as to experience
a story. – Rory MacLean
The project aims to:
1. Promote the successful integration of minority and non-Maltese nationals in Maltese community.
2. Identify the diversity in place-people relations and to map those relationships people have with the place where they live and where they call ‘home’.
3. Capture visual narratives of residents’ about their towns and communities.
4. Valorise visions of the community as share-able capital.
5. Provide a new representation of the town/village/community that is free of ‘cultural’ branding that valorises the touristic and heritage value of a place over the individual residents’ narratives and routes.
6. Provide a platform where community members meet and discuss their public spaces.