Date of the work: 2018
Medium: Plexiglass and site-specific performance
Exhibition history: Open site-specific performance installation on limestone structure at Ordinance Street corner with Republic Street, Valletta (2018)
As you enter the Baroque city of Valletta, walking through the re-imagined majestic entrance designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, you’ll find the ruins of the former Royal Opera House designed by the English architect Edward Middleton Barry in the second half of the nineteenth century, which was destroyed beyond repair during World War II. Although it was previously damaged extensively by fire and restored in 1877, the damaged it suffered during the war was so significant that it has never been rebuilt, even though it had only really survived for 65 years.
Part of Tabone’s original concept for Naħla was to raise awareness about the central role of bee culture in human culture. For example, parts of the patterns on surviving stonework across the street on the former Royal Opera House resemble honeycomb structures on closer inspection. Such designs are common in other places too. The same goes, to a lesser extent, for the patterns on bee wings, which are also echoed in patterns in the stonework and elsewhere.
The remains of the limestone structure, now known as Pjazza Teatru Rjal, provide the perfect melting pot for the creation of Tabone’s Rjali, which brings forth her crystalized imagination from what can also be seen as honeycomb fossils. The documented open site-specific performance she presented on the limestone structure at Ordinance Street corner with Republic Street, plays with the idea that these hidden objects are too fantastic for ordinary beings to behold. As if communing with the queen bee’s escapades away from making honey, the royal remnants appear from within the stone’s nooks and crannies.
