Deep Shelter is a long-term arts and health research initiative exploring how artistic practice, curatorial approaches and sensory engagement can transform therapeutic environments.

Developed within Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre, Mater Dei Hospital, Malta, the project brings together artists, healthcare professionals, researchers and patients to investigate how creative and nature-based interventions can soften clinical spaces, reduce anxiety and support emotional wellbeing during experiences of illness, hospitalisation and care.

At the heart of the project is the development of an audio-visual language for healthcare environments. Using immersive digital narratives, site-responsive installations and participatory arts practices, Deep Shelter creates moments of reflection, connection and psychological relief within spaces often associated with vulnerability, fear and uncertainty. Through holding presence, experiences that are difficult to articulate can still be acknowledged, witnessed and gently held.

A major milestone of the initiative was the symposium Curating the Hospital Space (2017), which brought together artists, researchers and healthcare practitioners to discuss the role of aesthetics, care and environment within contemporary healthcare settings.

Deep Shelter was awarded Best Project in the Community at the Malta Arts Awards and continues to contribute to ongoing national discussions surrounding arts, wellbeing and cultural-health methodologies.

How can art help create therapeutic spaces where people feel more held, more connected?

This 3 year residency was supported by Valletta 2018, City of Culture.

Arts, Health & Therapeutic Environments (2016 - 2020)

The initiative included:

artist residencies within the hospital environment

site-specific installations and environmental redesign strategies

digital visual narratives and immersive audiovisual works

sensory workshops using storytelling, sound, music, poetry and reflection

interdisciplinary collaborations with local and international artists

donated artworks integrated into therapy rooms, corridors and communal spaces

Malta Enterprise

Humanity at War: Reflections (2022)

A photographic exhibition exploring the human cost of war through the powerful documentary work of photojournalists Darrin Zammit Lupi and Heidi Levine.

The exhibition focused on the civilian experience of conflict, displacement and survival, inviting viewers to pause and reflect on the emotional realities that exist behind political narratives and headlines. Through intimate and deeply human imagery, the works revealed moments of grief, intense loss, displacement, resilience, survival and connection emerging within spaces of war.

The exhibition created a reflective space for dialogue surrounding war, ethics, memory and collective responsibility. It invited audiences to consider how empathy, witnessing and visual storytelling can deepen awareness of shared human vulnerability.

At its core, the exhibition asked: What happens when we truly allow ourselves to look?

Pandemic: Survival, Art & New Action (2021)

A collective exhibition curated during the aftermath of the global pandemic, exploring how artistic practice became a way of processing uncertainty, isolation, resilience and social transformation.

The exhibition brought together established and emerging artists working across painting, photography, sculpture, digital art, printmaking and mixed media. Selected through a national public call, the exhibition created a shared visual narrative reflecting the emotional, psychological and societal impact of the pandemic experience.

At the heart of the exhibition was the idea that art exists in the space between survival and action.

Somewhere along this trajectory lies the production of art.

How can art help us collectively process moments of rupture while imagining new ways forward?

Through collaboration, reflection and aesthetic encounter, Pandemic: Survival, Art & New Action became both a testimony to a shared historical moment and a space for reimagining what might emerge beyond it.

Longing & Belonging (2019)

a collective exhibition bringing together over 40 works by 18 local and international artists residing in Malta, exploring the deeply human desire for connection, safety, love and belonging.

Moving between portraiture, abstraction and landscape, the exhibition reflected on the emotional spaces we carry within us:

the longing to be seen,

to be understood,

to feel held through moments of vulnerability and uncertainty.

The exhibition was developed in support of Caritas Malta as part of their 50-year anniversary, highlighting the importance of compassion, solidarity and communal care.

At its heart was a simple understanding:

Ultimately, we are in this world together.

Through artistic exchange and shared presence, Longing & Belonging became a reflection on how art can create spaces of empathy, connection and human support.

ŻiguŻajg 2025

As curator and project manager of Fjamma: Every Child a Guardian of Nature for ŻiguŻajg 2025, I led the creative development, coordination and delivery of an immersive multi-sensory exhibition that brings together contemporary art installations, storytelling, education and sensory design. Developed in collaboration with artists, educators, movement practitioners, children and cultural professionals, the project transforms narrative into interactive environments where children and families can engage through sound, movement, texture, light, play and imagination.

The exhibition is rooted in Anna Grima’s HEY LISTEN storyworld and explores the five elements — Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Spirit — through a series of artist-designed “nature pods.” Alongside curating the artistic vision, I oversee project management, interdisciplinary collaboration, educational programming, artist coordination, public engagement, and the development of child-led initiatives such as the Children’s Advisory Board (CAB).

Fjamma places children at the centre of the cultural experience, encouraging emotional awareness, environmental consciousness, creativity, empathy and a renewed connection to heritage and nature through embodied, participatory storytelling.

The storytelling series HEY LISTEN© is part of a transmedia storytelling project adapted for children aged 6-10 from Anna Grima’s historical fiction novel Tahaya: Tales of the Tal-Qadi Stone©.

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