The activities will be a collaboration between project partners from Malta, Spain, North Africa, the Netherlands, and the UK, with the aim of building a network which will help develop Artist Run Organisations (AROs) and the contemporary art context in Malta.

Transformer focuses on the dynamic generated by AROs and their engagement with contingencies of the present, engendering artistic discourse via artists-based research activities in-situ. Transformer institutes a ground-up, grassroots, sustainable and long-lasting interchange; nurturing, developing and extending the activity of the Maltese contemporary art scene, widening its sphere of influence, and embedding it within European and international communities of practice.

Transformer is supported by the Multi-Annual Support Grant – Arts Council Malta and is part of the Valletta 2018 European Capital of Culture programme.

2017 – The first part of the project will focus on research and development. In this phase the project team will identify six artists based in Malta, who will each be paired up with one of the visiting artists in residence. The directors/curators of the five international AROs’s will visit Malta to scope sites for artistic engagement and exhibition. The visits should happen concurrently so that a public programme can also take place. In the last quarter of 2017 the artist residencies begin, each for a duration of up to one month.

2018 – During the first quarter of 2018 the final artist residencies will take place. Following that will be time for the production of work, as well as a comprehensive publicity and communication campaign. The final component, the multi-site exhibition, will happen in the final quarter of 2018.