Valletta, a tale of light and shade

Nothing in our lives is ever lost. On the contrary, each one of us possesses his own treasure trove of accumulated memories. According to Marcel Proust, the successful artist releases and reuses these stored memories as a basis of his art. In a similar manner, this exhibition intends to take the visitor on a journey through our own personal memoir: a series of architectural projects articulated by the dynamicity of chiaroscuro; tangible through the architectonic features during the day, awash with artificial light at night and captured in the moment by the photo.

We have also been inspired by Proust’s metaphorical use of the Magic Lantern as a narrative frame in À la recherche du temps perdu. Similarly to what happens in the novel, each drawing, photo and model will project the visitor into a different story of the night.

Retracing the 20 year-long collaboration and friendship between light designer Franck Franjou, architecture firm AP Valletta and photographer Guillaume Dreyfuss, the exhibition explores a series of dichotomies such as night and day, light and shade, permanence and temporality, with the aim of articulating a view of how light affects and moulds the city of Valletta. A series of drawings, photos and artefacts encapsulating and expressing these polarizations will take the visitor on an immersive, and suggestive, urban promenade.