The mysterious connections that Malta and Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, stow away beneath the earth’s surface come to light thanks to this intriguing visual art exhibition and short documentary by Leanne Wijnsma.

The work treats modern digital resources as the Earth’s natural networks of dirt and waters – a large pool of information connecting spaces, places and people. Subterranean Matter captures and recreates hard-to-access underground spaces using 3D technology: the fifteenth century cisterns beneath Valletta’s Law Courts, Valletta’s World War II war rooms, a Cold War bunker in the centre of Leeuwarden and twenty-first century aqueducts in Friesland. Visitors can crawl into the digitised tunnels, map the stones and soil and even smell the humidity. Part of the work is a short documentary named Children of the Underground, a short film documenting Valletta’s underground tunnel network dug by hand during World War II by its citizens. Wijnsma has spoken to the last remaining survivors who excavated kilometres of tunnels alongside their families as children. Featured in the film together with the following generation, they share their trauma and wonders of life in the hollows of the earth and what it meant to be reborn from the womb underground.

Subterranean Matter will be taking place at Spots A and B at Spazju Kreattiv between Friday 17th August 2018 and Sunday 23rd September 2018