As one door closes...

Since I came to live in Valletta 8 years ago, I have never seen this door open. It is the side entrance to the Palace, now the Armoury. In summer in particular, I often walk home around the arcades that surround Independence Square because there is always shade, and then along Old Theatre street past this closed door. Yesterday, the gate was open!

 I ventured in with my grocery bags, past the men standing in wonder looking up at the old clock.

 Inside, people enjoyed this surprising green space that had suddenly opened up to us in the heart of Valletta. The atmosphere was shaded, leisurely, cultural, calm. People sat with children in strollers. Two stone lions in one corner reminded us that we were in Valletta in the middle of a hot summer's day.


Many things have happened in the last few weeks to focus my thinking on open space and culture. Last week, The Times of Malta announced that the Eurobarometer survey had found that Valletta's cultural facilities were ranked last in Europe by residents. Immediately, on-line commentators jumped in to blame or to question the competence of people who live in Valletta to judge cultural facilities. When I commented in terms of a wider understanding of cultural facilities as including the streets, playgrounds, green and blue areas and all the formal and informal spaces where people undertake the daily process of creating their culture and where local residents are often put at the bottom of the list of stakeholders, I was dismissed to go and look up the meaning of cultural facilities in a dictionary.

A day later, the same newspaper reported the wider survey that showed that in fact Valletta comes somewhere in the middle in terms of livability as judged by residents. I've been wondering about what all this means.

"Culture", like open space, is contested. Cultural facilities are constructed to privilege a particular group of people over others. Valletta itself was constructed to privilege "gentlemen" over women, peasants, artisans and Maltese, including the nobility. That culture, of course, has changed. In the19th century, the privileged "cultured" classes moved out of Valletta and left it to the "lower" classes who rented or squatted in the crumbling townhouses or moved into the social housing built after WW2. But the privileged classes still expected to use Valletta as their cultural playground, to drive through its streets and find convenient parking, to shop, to attend the Manoel theatre, to lunch at Casino Maltese, that privileged remnant of the culture of gentlemen. The cultured classes remarked how Valletta was a hub of activity during the day but was dead after the shops closed. What they didn't notice was that after 7.00pm, Valletta was returned to the residents: families hung out in the piazzas, played bingo or bocci on the bastions, caroused in the football supporters clubs and went to bed undisturbed at a reasonable hour because they had to be up for work in the morning.

Now, this separation of the two cultures of Valletta is changing again as the relentless process of gentrification takes hold. Perhaps some of the anger directed by the cultured elite towards Renzo Piano's open air theatre built on the ruins of the Royal Opera House is that this new cultural facility is attracting a different audience that challenges the established view of the nature of culture. And then there is St James Cavalier, now Spazju Kreattiva; Valletta 2018, that is not a cultural facility; the regeneration of Strait St, formerly the red light entertainment district, then a residential area; the restoration of Is-Suq tal-Belt, the old market where some of the men who live in my block kept their butcher shops; MUZA, the former Museum of Fine Art now on the move into Auberge d'Italie; and the Bicceria, the old knights' abattoir, now intended to become a design hub.

I hesitate to say that I straddle the two cultures of Valletta. I am resident in a mixed social housing block in Lower Valletta and, over the course of a lifetime, I have accumulated a lot of cultural capital. I make full use of all the cultural facilities available in Valletta but I also walk the streets with my grocery bags, swim in the Harbour outside the bastions, grumble when my sleep is disturbed by party boats coming in from Sliema, struggle with a helpless grumpiness at cigarette ends dropped in the streets, cars parked on inadequate pavements, rubbish dumped, the smell of piss in doorways and dog shit underfoot. I also listen to my neighbours who tell me that there is nowhere for the children to play, that they are exhausted because they have to look after grandchildren as well as ageing parents, or that they can't afford to buy a flat in Valletta.

Straddling different cultures is often difficult and lonely. But I think that the cultural facilities in Valletta have to help create that bridge. Most have varying degrees of engagement with the local community. Two, MUZA and The Valletta Design Hub, have consciously adopted a process that places the local residents as key stakeholders in the development of their project. MUZA puts story-telling as central to their curatorial practice and have engaged with the local community by inviting residents to choose a painting from the collection, talk about why it's important for them and then see the painting displayed in a public place that has significance for them. Sandro Debono, who is overseeing the shift in location and culture for MUZA, is also enthusiastic about the walk through the courtyard of the Auberge d'Italie, linking La Valette square with Merchants St and thereby opening up to the local community.

The Valletta Design Hub in the area known as the Bicceria in Lower Valletta near Jews' Sally Port has taken this process a step further and seriously engaged with the local residents in the planning of the development. Caldon Mercieca is firmly committed to genuine community consultation using the slow process of knocking on doors, holding street meetings (he uses the term "unconference") and workshops for all those who will be impacted by the introduction of this cultural facility. My hope is that this will lay a foundation for a cultural space that is part of the community rather than a separate, if prestigious, institution.

If you continue along Old Theatre St, past the open door that began this musing, down the side of the old market currently boarded off for restoration, you arrive at St Paul's St and one of two newish zebra crossings.

A resident of St Paul's St tells me that the crossings are the result of pressure from European Union House, located across the street opposite the back of Is-Suq. EU house will be busier during the first half of 2017 when Malta holds the presidency of the European Union and entertains plenty of visitors who will have to walk the streets just as the residents of Valletta. As with most cultural facilities, what is good for visitors should also be good for residents.

This piece has been a few days in the writing and each day, I've called into the courtyard of the Palace Armoury. Already it has changed. The gracious seating has been removed and barriers put in to guide people to the box office and keep them away from the work going on in the old entrance off St George square. I just hope that when that work is complete, this cultural facility keeps the side door open to enhance the arcade past the National library and allow residents to enjoy this green haven as they walk through.

You can't just walk through with your shopping bags!

This is the footpath on the corner of Merchant St and Archbishop St. It is just up the road from the Merchant St entrance the the Valletta campus of Malta University, a beautiful old building that is part of the fabric of the Knight's city.

I could write this blog about the lack of consideration for pedestrians in Valletta. I could write about how pedestrians are at the bottom of the list in sharing the streets. I could write about the lack of a coherent design for pedestrian routes around the city.

Instead, I'm going to be specific.

I was overjoyed when MUZA unveiled their designs for their new venue in Auberge d'Italie. Sandro Debono, a guiding light for the shift of the Museum of fine Arts from South St, talked about the significance of story in curating and of community engagement. But my joy lay in the plan to enable a walking route through the courtyard of the museum from La Vallette square to Merchant St. At last someone was giving consideration to the concept of the streets as the connecting life of the city. Imagine the wonder of a stroll through City Gate, under the new Parliament House, past the back of St James Cavalier, across the back of Teatru Piazza Rjal, across La Vallette square, into MUZA for a coffee, across the courtyard and out on Merchant St, stroll the length of the street past the newly refurbished Is-Suq and the back of the Cathedral and Palace and then...

The flaneur arrives at the photo above.

So, imagine my joy last year when The University of Malta beautifully restored their Valletta campus and re-opened the connecting passage through from Merchant St to St Paul's St. The space became a delightful linking haven away from traffic with occasional exhibitions to raise awareness of the University as a cultural institution engaging with the local community. The University became part of my cultural map and during the week, I walked through with my groceries and greeted the security people on the desk. Here was a cultural and academic institution that was part of the community and part of my life.

Until last week. I resolutely struggled through the bikes and cars above and turned into the entrance to the University. The glass doors were closed and a sign demanded that I ring the bell for assistance. I did, and the door opened. I walked through into the calm space and smiled at the security person who had left her desk and was walking towards me.

"You will have to stop doing this," she said, "You can't just walk through with your shopping bags."

I tried to counter my disbelief by talking about engaging with the Valletta community, about the value of a calm space away from traffic, about a campus that opened out to the community.

"But we are a prestigious institution," she said, "There are plenty of other routes that you can use."

And of course I will use them but my sadness is about an opportunity missed, a chance lost to create Valletta as a city were cultural institutions work with the local community to develop pedestrian routes that are safe and pleasant and build our social capital. Instead, the privileged world of the academic is separated from the everyday life of a working city. A pity.

I tried to post a short version of this blog on the Valletta campus FB page but it didn't get past the gatekeepers.

In and Posting

Using Firefox instead of Safari and suddenly I'm in!

I've been silent for three years as I worked on the third book, Middle Sea Dreaming. The book is about my travels around the Mediterranean Sea and the women who have lived their lives around its shores. On my seventieth birthday, I swam naked in the Middle Sea at the mouth of the Irini Gorge in Crete. I thought about my journey into old age and longed for the inspiration of other women's stories to guide my travels. Now a story is told and the book sits on my computer awaiting the next part of the journey. I am picking up on other parts of my life.

My intention is to continue my blog story during 2017 and 2018 when Malta takes on new political and cultural ventures in relation to Europe. These are interesting times!