The exhibition Out of Time presents a collection of works on paper and mixed-media paintings selected from the last ten years of the artist’s studio production, including work produced during the Covid-19 lockdown.The exhibition centres on the artist’s ongoing concern of our relationship with time and what it means for a human being to exist temporally in the stretch that we call our lifetime.The works exhibited are selected from the following bodies of work:The Terrain Vague Series (2010-2011): The concern with attempting to locate and to define the undetermined divide between two opposing forms. In landscape theory, the concept of terrain vague, wasteland or ambiguous space, refers to the undescribed territory that separates the city from nature. The artist used this termas metaphor for our relationship with our surroundings.Two works entitled “Between Ash and Dust” are shown from this collection. The works in charcoal and mixed media on wood, speak of implausible distances and detached spaces splitting up such evasive elements as smoke and sky. They are as much about the process of drawing/painting as they are about the current war imagery of destruction taken from tabloids or television. These metaphoric memorials sway unclearly between human intervention and natural phenomena and embody an act of restitution through the same material they are made of (charcoal being fire’s residue), a destructive force embalmed through its very remains.The Lichtung Series (2019 – today): This ongoing series of works were inspired by Martin Heidegger’s term Lichtung as the “Clearing”, and makes reference to Heidegger’s quote: “In the midst of beings as a whole an open place occurs.There is a clearing, a lighting… Only this clearing grants and guarantees to us humans a passage to those beings that we ourselves are not, and access to the being that we ourselves are.”The artist uses this title to refer to a series of works that relate to the genre of the landscape,but plays with the philosopher’s definition in German, ‘eine Lichtung ist,’ literally meaning‘a clearing is,’ suggesting the kind of clearing one finds in the woods or the forest, where light seeps through the less dense parts of the branches precisely referring to the ‘lightened’ patch of the forest. The artist is, however, more interested in Heidegger’s use of ‘Lichtung ’in the sense of ‘shedding light’ on something, referring to our capacity to give meaning(in this case to landscape) through our own memory. The works therefore refer to the artist’s memory as the shedding light that creates these ‘could have been’ landscapes, a tribute to Simon Schama’s assertion in his book ‘Landscape and Memory’ that “Before it can ever bea repose for the sen ses, landscape is a work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much fromstrata of memory as from layers of rock.”The Mounds, Canifantasma and Nell’Ombra della Torre Series (2018): These collections of works were created in Umbria, Italy during the artist’s residency at Civitella Ranieri castle in 2018. The works selected for the exhibition are a direct reaction to the experience of space and history on the artist.The ‘Mounds’ collection, are the more abstract and take their inspiration from landscape forms around the area. These works preceded and also fed the current ‘Lichtung’ series.The ‘Canifantasma’ and ‘Nell’ Ombra della Torre’ series were inspired by the history and architecture of the Civitella Castle in Umbria and the Ranieri family who were the original owners of the castle.The Swath Series (2020): The series which started during the COVID-19 outbreak is inspired by rituals of birth and death in historical and contemporary societies.The title ‘swath’ as the noun and ‘swathe’ as the verb reference the way we envelope both babies at birth and corpses in bags prior to burial.The series concerns the aesthetics of the clothing at the two extremes of the human lifespan(birth and death) and reflects the ‘thrown projection’ into this world (and its consequential abrupt truncation through death) in Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’. The works, which show bodies wrapped in what seems like a cloth or a swathe of bandages, equally make reference to news images of Covid fatalities and to victims of a road accident or death at sea. These forms have a striking resemblance to the swathing of newly-born babies throughout history.

Also of interest: SPLEEN

Times of Malta published a review of highlights of the 23 years long Xarabank TV show run: “The Friday after winning the 2008 general election, Lawrence Gonzi made a full appearance on Xarabank, analysing election results and surveys putting more of the PN’s electoral manifesto to the public.”

In the moments after being elected leader of the Labour Party, a Xarabank journalist asked Muscat whether he would be on Xarabank next Friday, to which he promptly replied, “yes, of course”.

Ahead of the 2013 general election, Muscat was also the subject of a popular day-in-the-life video which aired on Xarabank, introducing his wife Michelle and then infant twin daughters to the public at large.

Gonzi and Muscat frequently tousled on the program and in the run-up to the 2013 election, Xarabank dedicated a full episode to a leadership debate between the two.

On the former prime minister’s own suggestion, in 2002 the Xarabank team interviewed Dom Mintoff in an outside broadcast in his hometown of Cospicua.

The show also regularly tackled social issues, perhaps most prominently in the debate leading up to the referendum on divorce. The “yes or no” question was put to members of parliament, leading to loud and hot arguments between the camps.

Despite often facing criticism for its lack of nuance, Xarabank was also one of the first television programmes to feature the experiences of Maltese gay couples in 2008 and how some resorted to living overseas in order to get married.

Another highly viewed episode is Xarabank’s interview with Simon Bugeja, the only survivor of the Simshar shipwreck tragedy which claimed the lives of four people, including Bugeja’s father Karmenu and his 11-year-old son Theo. Bugeja captured the public’s sympathy on Xarabank as he tearfully recounted his son’s final moments reciting the rosary and the act of contrition as they became increasingly desperate and fearful that no rescue would come.

In 2012, one of Xarabank’s most highly viewed episodes was one dedicated to Carmen Camilleri, the sister of seven-year-old Valletta murder victim Twannie Camilleri. Twanny and Carmen’s parents, Ġiġa and Leli were convicted for the boy’s murder on the strength of then seven-year-old Carmen’s testimony.However, on her Xarabank appearance revisiting the scene of the crime, Carmen recanted her testimony and declared her parents innocent, a fact that served to incense the public as well as its insinuation that the killer was still at large.

Xarabank also famously entertained its own version of the satanic panic, dedicating a number of episodes to the discussion of satanism, giving airtime to exorcists and people who claimed to have had a close brush with the occult.

The programme also found ways to stroke controversy in unconventional ways, with its interviews on sex and relationships often going viral, such as the time a counsellor explained that research indicated Maltese people watched more pornography during general elections.

Xarabank was always in touch with its philanthropic side, helping bring to prominence the story of Bjorn Formosa, who spearheaded activism for sufferers of ALS in Malta and helped raise hundreds of thousands of euros for care homes dedicated to people suffering from ALS.

Xarabank Highlights written by Jessica Arena (Times of Malta)