Valletta

Theme: Art about the Sea—On Wider Conversations

Emilija Škarnulytė is an artist and filmmaker, born in Vilnius, Lithuania. Working between the documentary and the imaginary, Škarnulytė makes films and immersive installations exploring deep time and invisible structures, from the cosmic and geologic to the ecological and political. Winner of the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize and the Ars Fennica Award 2023, Škarnulytė represented Lithuania at the XXII Triennale di Milano and was included in the Baltic Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture.

An essential aspect of the festival involves the development of workshops centered around the audiovisual experience on board the catamaran. These workshops are designed to address three key themes: cultural diversity, environmental sustainability and gender equality. Suitable for children aged 5 to 11, the activities are inspired by an audiovisual experience highlighting artifacts from the Louvre, encouraging active engagement, conversation and participatory learning.

The first weekend of the Maltese leg of the Art Explora festival, on March 23 and 24, will launch the "Ocean Weekends". In Malta, these two days of programming will be organized in collaboration with the Malta Biennale and curators Sofia Baldi Pighi, Emma Mattei and Andrew Borg Wirth, in partnership with the French Embassy in Valletta. The Ocean Weekend in Valletta will invite the public to a series of round tables, film screenings and inspiring talks, bringing together key speakers from the worlds of art and science around the issue of the oceans' climate emergency.