Grotto Girl, an artist-led residency and community outreach project by Louisa Chircop, is opening today, MUŻA, Malta’s National Community Art Museum today, June 11 at 6.30pm.
Present for the occasion will be Christopher Cutajar, permanent secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Tourism, Matt Skelly, Australian High Commissioner to Malta, and Anneliese Sammut, Consul General of Malta in Sydney.
The exhibition is the culmination of a four-week creative residency during which Chircop worked closely with a range of local communities to explore themes of identity, memory and belonging.
The project brought together participants from diverse backgrounds, including SPERO NGO for the visually impaired individuals from, residents from the Orange Grove Mellieħa Home, Safi Dementia Day Centre relatives, MCAST students and collaborators from Alka Ceramics, as well as members of the public, in a series of artist-led clay workshops.
These workshops served as a collective act of storytelling and healing through art, with each participant contributing sculptural elements to the final installation.
The resulting exhibition reimagines MUŻA’s 450-year-old central courtyard as a “living grotto”, a symbolic well of memory and subconsciousness, transformed by the hands of the community into a powerful space of reflection and connection.
“From the well of memory, a community rises,” Chircop says. “Grotto Girl is a celebratory love letter to Malta and its people, honouring their stories through hands-on art-making that is healing, expressive, and unifying.”
As the first artist to conceptually and physically activate MUŻA’s historic courtyard well, Chircop merges psychoanalytic and feminist aesthetics with Maltese craft traditions, offering an emotionally resonant experience that invites visitors to engage with Malta’s cultural heritage in new ways.
Born in Sydney, Australia, Chircop is the granddaughter of Maltese World War II immigrants. Her return to Malta for this residency underscores a personal journey of reconnection and cultural reawakening.
Grotto Girl, which runs until June 29, is made possible through the support of MUŻA, Heritage Malta, the Australian High Commission in Malta, Alka Ceramics, Zamcor Media, Gemelli Framing, Rathenart Printing and Marie Gallery 5.
Read this Times of Malta review of the exhibition.
