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The 2015 Valletta City Gate project, incorporating the new parliament building, is a site of national and historical importance, noted for its social and cultural significance both locally and internationally.
For over two years, the photographer observed works as they developed at Renzo Piano’s new parliament for Valletta. He found that a construction site is not unlike theatre. Workers perform to a script set by the architect and his team.
There is, however, another underlying performance which is very often overlooked. It lies at the unconscious level of human behaviour as a result of the workers’ necessary interaction with tools and materials relative to the circumstances of their tasks. Of particular interest to this project are works performed solely for a utilitarian purpose, with no aesthetic consideration necessary; works that eventually would have another surface applied over them.
Consequently, this gives rise to multi-layerd acts of raw expression. This body of work aspires to explore
unconscious behaviour as an aesthetic and seeks to interpret the key concepts of chance, reality and perception.
It is both an artistic expression and a document about the skin beneath the face of an historic, architectural intervention and about the temporality and influence of man at his workplace.