Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection

The Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection is a publicly owned visual art collection held by Fondazzjoni Kreattività and stored at St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity in Valletta, Malta. The collection includes a range of physical art works by local and international artists who have exhibited at St James Cavalier since the year 2000, along with documentation relating to the exhibitions they were a part of.

Forming the Collection

Young Willie Apap in bronze by Vincent Apap, from the Fondazzjoni Kreattività art collection

When Fondazzjoni Ċentru għall-Kreattività was created to operate the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity in 2000, it immediately started putting on visual art exhibitions within the building. Over the years, many of the artists whose work was exhibited within the space donated one of the works from their exhibition through a long-established practice common in Malta in state-owned spaces used for art exhibitions. This practice has led to Fondazzjoni Kreattività amassing a substantial collection of art works, which are considered to be its permanent collection and, by extension, part of the National Collection of works of art.

In January 2016, Fondazzjoni Kreattività reviewed the way works entered its permanent collection and ceased the practice of obligatory donation from artists whose work was exhibited at St James Cavalier. Since then, new works have continued to enter the collection under arrangements that are fairer to artists. This change followed an initial research project to gather feedback from artists, curators, cultural heritage professionals and others involved in the sector. This research project included a display of some of the works from the collection, entitled Past! Present. Future? as part of the Spazju Kreattiv programme. In most cases, this was the first time the works of art had been viewed in public since they first appeared at the original exhibition they came from.

Following on from the 2016 research project, work on compiling a detailed catalogue focusing on Fondazzjoni Kreattività’s art collection at St James Cavalier continued in January 2017.

Apart from the works of art themselves, which can be considered an archived document of the artists’ work, the collection custodians set out to identify which are the most important basic elements that remain after a creative project has been exhibited to the public – the documentation. Proposals, press releases, artist profiles, photos, reviews, posters, videos and other material can provide an indication of the significance of the context in which the works of art were originally presented. This material can help researchers to better understand the artworks and also the work of the artist in a broader cultural spectrum. These items are being systematically collected and archived by curators through 2017 and 2018.