In Mqabba, a UV-lit exhibition serves as a cry for help

The curator of Katel Delia’s installation at Kamra ta’ Fuq spoke to me before I visited and told me to expect the unexpected.

As I stepped in the dark ultraviolet-lit room, I was gobsmacked, humbled, in awe. A whole new reality was staring there at me, disguised in beauty, taking me from the heights of the heavens to the dark profound abyss of the seas, depicting the Mediterranean not as we know it in postcards or holiday brochures, but as the last place of rest of almost 23,000 souls that lost their lives in the hope of a better one.

Katel Delia

Usually, the art exhibitions I view, installations et al, transport me into a surreal world, where myth, imagination and surreal mingle to produce something beautiful. Here in this darkness, artist Katel Delia has given us something real, something that was there in front of us all the time but, for some reason or another, we chose not to see, or perhaps we decided to skim through, let go of all the gory details and focus on something more pleasing.

This installation will bring you to your senses. It is a cry for help. It is a wake-up call for all of us here that wake up in comfortable beds, have jobs to go to, live a busy social life,...