Klassifika
Beneficiary: Tyrone Grima
Reference number: ARTS03-25-6325
Project Title: The Deep Blue Sea
Amount awarded: €30,000
This project is a theatre production of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea, with inclusion and access at its heart: a Maltese translation by Immanuel Mifsud will bring to life a feminist and queer naturalist work for a local audience, accompanied by Image Theatre workshops with students of the Department of Gender and Sexualities and members of Drachma, ensuring creative collaboration and accessibility in rehearsal and performance. By foregrounding voices that have historically been marginalised—women navigating patriarchal entrapment and a foreign doctor silenced due to sexuality—it not only stages powerful storytelling but actively creates space for underrepresented communities to shape the process. As well as performing the text in Maltese, the project embeds inclusion through participatory workshops and research, situating the art-making process as much a platform for empowerment and dialogue as the final production.
Beneficiary: Duška Malešević
Reference number: ARTS09-25-6349
Project Title: Inside Voices
Amount awarded: €12,000
Inside Voices is a participatory art project taking place within the juvenile detention facility in Malta, led by artists Duška Malešević and Pep Walls. Through painting, photography, and performance, the project offers young inmates awaiting court hearings a creative outlet to articulate their inner world. Starting from a simple one-word self-expression, participants collaboratively transform emotions into large-scale paintings, portraits and still-life photographs. The project integrates an artistic performance which will be happening in the prison yard and recorded through film and drone footage, emphasizing both personal reflection and collective creation. The experience culminates in a public exhibition, where the movie recorded will be presented together with a limited-edition booklet, sharing these often-unheard voices and reframing their narratives through art.
Beneficiary: Ryan Board
Reference number: ARTS55-25-6520
Project Title: LIGHT OUT – An Ecological Signal to the Cosmos (Phase 1)
Amount awarded: €30,000
LIGHT OUT – An Ecological Signal to the Cosmos is a participatory cultural project that invites Malta to collectively extinguish its lights and become visible from orbit. Phase One, proposed here, is a public exhibition and series of dialogues. It serves as a seed for the wider 2031 vision but has a discrete scope: to present the research, bring light pollution and experiential health concerns into public discourse, and build partnerships. The LAND RAFT – the artist’s mobile studio – will be presented as the exhibition centrepiece, an open lab where visitors can experience the project in live development. Surrounding installations and forums will broaden engagement, with schools, residents, scientists and policymakers all included. Light pollution is recognised by European agencies as both an ecological and health crisis. By positioning it as an experiential health concern, Phase One shows how culture can illuminate emerging crises while bridging culture with science and innovation through Artistic Research.
Beneficiary: Diellza Ilgner
Reference number: ARTS50-25-6514
Project Title: magħna
Amount awarded: €6,032
Magħna is a six-month pilot of14 inclusive dance sessions designed for people with physical disabilities and mobility challenges in Malta. Developed by performing artist Diellza Ilgner during Arts Council Malta’s CASE programme, the project responds to an urgent cultural need for disabled adults to access high-quality artistic opportunities. Sessions will be facilitated by Rachel Calleja, Artistic Director of Opening Doors, in accessible venues, and will culminate in a public performance showcasing the creativity and artistry of the participants. This pilot is the first step towards building Malta’s first sustainable dance group with people with physical disabilities, with long-term plans to present work locally and internationally. By positioning disabled bodies at the centre of creative practice, magħna embodies the principles of the Right to Culture, ensuring that all individuals have the right to create, perform, and participate in Malta’s cultural life.
Beneficiary: Melanie Erixon
Reference number: ARTS14-25-6395
Project Title: Novalunosis
Amount awarded: €29,960
Novalunosis is a collective exhibition that invites audiences to reconnect with the universal act of stargazing through immersive, multi-sensory experiences. Featuring Clint Calleja, Katel Delia (MT/FR), Liliana Fleri Soler, Elisa Von Brockdorff, the band SKALD, and international artists Katie Paterson (Scotland) and Semiconductor (UK), the project merges art, science, and mythology to explore humanity’s enduring relationship with the cosmos. The exhibition presents new commissions, existing works, and live performances across installation, sound, and music, with several designed to be experienced lying down, mirroring the posture of real star gazing. An educational programme, developed with the Astronomical Society of Malta, includes talks, workshops, rooftop star-gazing sessions, and astrophotography. Accessibility is central, with NASA’s star sonifications offering a unique way for blind and visually impaired audiences to “listen” to the stars. Musical elements include Von Brockdorff’s live performance using stellar frequencies and SKALD’s Maltese songs inspired by traditional poetry and starry nights.
Beneficiary: Rochelle Gatt
Reference number: ARTS35-25-6482
Project Title: EXIT: Shelter to Self
Amount awarded: €6,192
This long-term project supports youths in Appoġġ residential homes as they transition out of care and prepare for independent living. At this stage, they enter a liminal phase: leaving care without yet having full independence. Marked by uncertainty and reduced support, this period brings challenges such as budgeting, job seeking, housing, and managing emotional stress. The project is grounded in the internationally recognised, evidence-based EXIT (Expressive Arts in Transition) framework, which offers a structured, therapeutic approach for individuals in transition. Through intermodal artistic practices—including movement, visual arts, breath work, and symbolic play—participants explore emotional regulation, body awareness, and self-expression. The framework draws on the salutogenic model of health, emphasising personal and community strengths over pathology. Over time, participants develop tools for self-regulation, resilience, and social connection, while co-creating a sense of agency and belonging within their peer communities. This process equips them with embodied strategies and inner resources to face independence with confidence and self-efficacy.
Beneficiary: COSTANTINO FILM LTD
Reference number: ARTS51-25-6515
Project Title: A Christmas Carol: the first audio-graphic work with binaural frequencies
Amount awarded: €16,800
Neurosonic Classics: A Christmas Carol is a pioneering audio-graphic production that blends literature, 3D binaural audio, and neurosciencies to create an inclusive, immersive experience. Developed by Costantino Films Ltd with the support of the University of Malta, and backed by a Ph.D. in neurosciences the project is designed to enhance emotional and cognitive engagement through scientifically calibrated binaural beats, while promoting equitable access to culture.
Narrated in both English and Italian, the work specifically targets visually impaired audiences, offering a format that transcends visual barriers. The project includes audience co-creation workshops, academic testing, and community listening sessions in Malta, aiming to foster cultural participation and well-being through sound.
The final work will be distributed globally on platforms like Spotify, etc., and locally through inclusive headphone-based events, setting a replicable model for culturally rich, accessible audio storytelling aligned with Arts Council Malta’s Right to Culture strategy.
Beneficiary: Luca Selvaggi
Reference number: ARTS49-25-6512
Project Title: Seeds of Sound by Sounds of Ether
Amount awarded: €28,000
Seeds of Sound by Sounds of Ether is an innovative cultural initiative led by four artists: Luca Selvaggi (sound therapist and musician), Gianni Selvaggi (theatre actor, musician, and animator), Rachel Calleja (creative therapist and choreographer), and Tina Rizzo (actor, drama teacher, and puppeteer). Together they blend sound therapy, music, theatre, and inclusive creative practice to deliver guided, multi-sensory journeys for children and parents in Maltese schools. The idea was successfully piloted in 2025 with Resonance at St Michael’s School, reaching 1,200 participants across four sessions. Families took part in a 45-minute sound journey that fostered intimacy, trust, and emotional connection, with parents requesting further sessions.
Building on this success, the project will create a catalogue of six to eight sound journeys tailored to different age groups and themes such as empathy, resilience, and digital balance. Adapted sessions will also be offered to the disability arts sector, ensuring accessibility and inclusivity.
Beneficiary: BORED PEACH CLUB LTD.
Reference number: ARTS38-25-6487
Project Title: Where the Bored Things Are: A Guide to Looking Again
Amount awarded: €14,451
Where the Bored Things Are: A Guide to Looking Again is a series of slow, sensory photo-walk and writing workshops held in Maltese and Gozitan villages, inviting anyone; from teens to grandparents, to document the overlooked beauty of everyday life. Using low-cost reusable film cameras, phone lenses, notebooks, and sketchpads, participants create a quiet archive of their surroundings. The result? A community-authored zine series and exhibition that celebrate the right to access for all and the art of observing what too often goes unseen.
Beneficiary: Aidan Somers
Reference number: ARTS15-25-6397
Project Title: Community Empowerment Through Creative Practice
Amount awarded: €24,912
A national programme of mobile music workshops across six hubs, co-created with diverse communities in Malta and Gozo. Participants — including youth, migrants, people with disabilities, older adults, and individuals facing mental health challenges — will collaborate to produce music and creative works that celebrate inclusion, dialogue, and community integration.
