TOPIA, 2024
First inspired by the typical Maltese shop fronts on a visit to the island in 2019, Barford embarked on a journey across every town and village in Malta and Gozo, amassing over 11,000 photographs of shops, creating a portrait of contemporary life on the islands.
These photographs have been used to make 1,000 handmade, fine bone-china buildings, each representing one of the shops he encountered. The miniature buildings, each a unique work of art, have been assembled by the artist to form a Maltese street, framed by two rubble walls that are so characteristic of the island’s landscape.
The exhibition also features recorded interviews with shop owners, offering visitors an intimate connection with the faces behind the façades. ‘TOPIA’ derived from the Greek word ‘Topus’ meaning place, offers a fresh perspective on Malta and Gozo during a time of rapid change, encouraging reflection and conversation on the evolving socio-cultural fabric of the islands.
Visitors have the opportunity to purchase these unique, signed pieces online, with proceeds supporting Heritage Malta’s community and contemporary art projects. Additionally, a publication featuring interviews and photographs of the shopkeepers are also available, offering further insight into the stories and histories of these beloved local establishments.
Shop for your favourite fine bone china miniature shops here – Home – Topia
"A thousand miniature handmade fine bone china shops, and a million untold stories cloistered inside them!"
Noel Zammit, Chief Executive Officer at Heritage Malta
This exhibition encapsulates the immense transformation of Malta’s townscapes and the nation’s consumption habits in the past decades. The small corner groceries of our childhood, where housewives gathered to fetch the daily household essentials and chat with the neighbours, have all but disappeared. Those intimate experiences from a slow-paced lifestyle long dead and buried have morphed into the anonymity of supermarkets, sprawling shopping malls, large speciality stores, and online shopping.
TOPIA does not seek a black or white answer as to the benefits or otherwise of this profound and rapid change. Nor does it aim to simply trigger nostalgia of old economic and social trends. Rather, it encourages reflection on our evolving socio-cultural landscape, inviting visitors to ponder the subtle nuances we take little notice of until they become glaring contrasts we cannot ignore.
