with guest expert Matthew Attard
Movimento is a series of five public, interactive talks presented from the perspective of artists outside of dance, looking in. Movimento takes a fresh and innovative approach to audience engagement, where invited guests share their experience of dance or movement, demystifying and making accessible this rich and beautiful art form and inviting the audience to become active spectators.
‘SEEING – TRACING – DRAWING MOVEMENT’
with guest expert Matthew Attard
20th June / 18:30 at ŻfinMalta Studios
Join us for the fourth and final appointment within the ŻfinMalta Movimento series for the 23/24 season with our guest, Matthew Attard. Matthew unpacks the points at which movement and dance intersect with his work following two collaborations with the National Dance Company (‘On Reefs and Eroded Lands We Danced’ and ‘Geographers of Solitude’).
Matthew’s practice investigates images as social and cultural constructs and he is strongly interested in situating his practice within the realm of contemporary drawing through a multimedia approach that highlights drawing’s versatile, performative, and time-based nature. His interest in understanding the gaze as a form of drawing – its perceptual, physiological and cultural dimensions – were the focus of his practice-based PhD research at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, funded by the Malta Arts Scholarship scheme. Matthew is currently the solo artist representing the Malta Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, with the project ‘I WILL FOLLOW THE SHIP’, commissioned by the Malta Arts Council and co-curated by Elyse Tonna and Sara Dolfi.
Raised in Malta, in 2009 he moved to Venice and collaborated with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the USA Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2009 and 2011. Later, he came back to Malta where in 2018 he obtained his Masters by Research Degree from the Digital Arts Department of the University of Malta. He first exhibited his work in a double solo show organised in 2014 at Galleria Michela Rizzo in Venice. Since then, he has exhibited in Venice, Rome, Valletta, Genoa, London, Beijing and Los Angeles among other cities. Also, in 2017 he was selected for the 3rd edition of the ‘Le Latitudini dell’Arte‘ Biennale, at the Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, while in 2018 he was awarded the Under 30 Euromobil Prize at ArteFiera, Bologna.
He was selected three times to show in the context of ‘Ten Artists to Watch’ at LACDA (Los Angeles Centre for Digital Arts) and in 2019 he was invited to participate in ‘ArtissimaTelephone’ at the OGR spaces in Turin. Recently, he was shortlisted for the Lumen Prize 2021. ‘Rajt ma rajtx… naf li rajt‘ is one of Matthew’s major solo shows, curated by Elyse Tonna at Valletta Contemporary in 2021. In 2022 he was commissioned the work ‘Here’s How I Did Not See What You Wanted Me To See’ as part of the OPEN digital residency at Blitz, Valletta. His most recent solo show, ‘Ship of Fools’, took place in March 2023 at Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venice.
