Dr Raphael Vella, senior lecturer in the Department of Arts, Open Communities and Adult Education (Faculty of Education), was recently invited to curate an exhibition for the seventh edition of MADATAC, a Madrid-based festival of New Media Arts and Advanced Audio Visual Technologies. MADATAC brings together important experimental art from around the world and takes place in different venues around the Spanish capital. The festival opened on 20 January, 2016, and the exhibition curated by Dr Vella, entitled 'No Man's Land', was held at the prestigious cultural centre, CentroCentro Cibeles. 'No Man's Land' presented work by Maltese artists Alexandra Pace, Vince Briffa, Mark Mangion and Jimmy Grima (Rubberbodies) and revolved around uncertain spaces which haunt our every certainty and the blurring of territorial lines and divisions.
Dr Vella was also invited to present a paper during MADATAC's symposium on 'Cyberculture and New Media Art', which included presentations by other international artists, academics and curators. His paper, called 'Transnational flux in a small island state', discussed Malta's specific geopolitical, postcolonial situation in relation to recent developments in the cultural scene at a local and international level. Another international exhibition curated by Dr Vella, 'Good Walls make Good Neighbours', served as a central conceptual motif for the paper.