The Malta Art POn 13 June, Spazju Kreattiv, Malta’s National Centre for Creativity in Valletta, hosted the national premiere of Martyrion: The Story of Isabelle, a short film by Teresa Antignani and Luca Ciriello. The screening was followed by a conversation with Isabelle Bonnici, Teresa Antignani and Andre Callus from Moviment Graffitti. As the discussion unfolded, the audience listened as the conversation moved from Maltese to English to Italian without ever settling in one language. This was not decorative multilingualism. It was Malta itself appearing in the room: an island shaped by crossings, colonisations and migrations, where stories of struggle and exploitation in the Mediterranean coexist, overlap and sometimes collide. Isabelle Bonnici is the mother of Jean Paul Sofia, who died at twenty on 3 December 2022 after the collapse of a building under construction in Corradino. Malta is an island of continuous construction. Between 2010 and 2022, at least forty-nine workers died on Maltese construction sites.* Through her public campaign, Isabelle Bonnici demanded justice and obtained a public inquiry. Teresa Antignani (Italy, 1991) is an artist and activist whose practice is rooted in Southern Italy, sacred iconography and eco-feminist struggles. Since 2020, Martyrion has developed as an itinerant research project across territories marked by industrial abuse, environmental devastation and political neglect. Moving through what Teresa Antignani calls the cathedrals of profit, the project gathers testimonies from communities affected by extractive economies and corrupted policies. Its use of Christian female martyr iconography does not sanctify suffering. It offers a structure through which bodies, landscapes and local struggles become public evidence.
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