Art Students’ Visit to R Gallery

The Senior 3, 4 and 5 Art option students were taken to the contemporary art exhibition OIKOS LOGIA held at R Gallery in Sliema, which displayed a collection of works by local and foreign artists, namely, Adrian Abela, Jon Banthorpe, Anna Calleja, Showzen Kajima, Tom Van Malderen, Cyril Sancereau, Ian Schranz, Stefan Spiteri, Ritty Tacsum and Sam Vassallo.

The exhibition’s theme is the (dys)functional relationship between humans and their natural habitat. It deals with the cultural and social breakdown in our relationship to our natural surroundings, and hones in on the erosive eclipse of our habitat to a point where we mistake our urban fabric for our real habitat.

In this exhibition, the artists address the infectious challenges of our time, framed by excessive urban development, political and economic ambitions, and the thoughtless misuse, abuse and exhaustion of our environment.

The conversation created by these artists, aims to guide the viewer to contemplate the current situation and the effects of what this means on a deeper level, relating to our responsibilities as citizens of the world.

The experience of visiting this contemporary art gallery gave the students the opportunity to understand the effect of and message that contemporary art can give to the viewer, and through the exhibition tour by the curator Julien Vinet, students were able to gain a deeper understanding of each of the works, and how they are linked with the central theme of environmental destruction.