An exhibition at the Council of Europe
Fragile Foundations*
Four Maltese artists. One very official lobby. Creation, collapse and democracy.
Lobby of the Hemicycle, Strasbourg · 5 to 14 November 2025
Presented by the Permanent Representation of Malta to the Council of Europe and The Bored Peach Club, as part of the cultural programme under the Maltese Presidency of the Council of Europe and the World Forum for Democracy 2025.
Fragile Foundations begins from a moment of uncertainty, the tremor between creation and collapse, where everything we know is both forming and falling apart at once.
At its heart, it reflects on the fragile balance that defines both art and democracy: one that relies on care, on the human capacity to rebuild what fractures, and on meaning that persists through uncertainty.
Space one: The Ground of Becoming
Francesca Balzan and Rebecca Bonaci
Clay and horizons converge in acts of formation and reflection. Origins, the shaping of form, the stillness before motion.
Francesca Balzan presents fifteen hand-shaped clay heads that embody creation as a primal act. Their imperfections breathe life, each indentation a record of immediacy and care.
Rebecca Bonaci's pastel landscapes unfold as meditations on serenity and renewal. Coiling suns and reflective horizons, where sea and sky merge in quiet equilibrium.
Space two: The Weight of Unmaking
Shaun Grech and Kane Cali
Rupture enters the surface, colour distorts, matter fractures. Disintegration becomes a form of continuity.
Shaun Grech confronts the human spirit in moments of crisis. Painted figures erupt in raw colour and emotional distortion, caught between recognition and erasure.
Kane Cali's hybrid sculptures of steel, obsidian, rock and concrete fuse the natural and the industrial. What once emerged from clay returns as alloy and ruin, yet still insists on shape.
A meditation on renewal*
Between serenity and violence, the show traces the rhythm of creation and collapse. Fragile yet persistent, shaped again and again by the will to endure.
All images by Melchior Giordimaina.