FIRST October 2019

OCTOBER 2019

THE CREATIVES ISSUE STARRING DAPHNE CARUANA GALIZIA PIERRE BUGEJA FRANCIS BACON CARLOS MOTA CHARLES & RON KRYSTLE PENZA VERSACE RICHARD GERES CHARLOTTE BRONTË JOHN PAUL AZZOPARDI STEPHEN LA ROSA CIMABUE

DENIM FROM

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OPENING SOON Centerparc, Qormi

EDITORIAL

Editorial n 2004 Daphne Caruana Galizia started work on a new magazine called Taste, with the tagline - feed your imagination. Several years later the magazine would evolve into Taste&Flair. Two years ago this month, just a few days after the publication of the 103rd issue of Taste&Flair, Daphne was brutally murdered in a car bomb attack close to her home in Bidnija. There is no floral way of saying this, the case remains unsolved and justice has yet to be served. A look at her still existent Pinterest page reflects her varied interests, visual inspiration and design ideas and gives a strong feel and window into the other side of her journalistic and creative endeavours, revealing insights into a person that few people knew. Personal Pinterest pages are interesting because they reflect a selection of visual ideas that have been curated and collected by their owner, and allow for an instant personal sharing of tastes and interests.

This month we came across the new book Beige Is Not A Color, by Carlos Mota (formerly international style editor for AD and editor at large for Elle Decor), published

by Vendome Press. The pages pulsate with colour, pattern and texture. When we saw the book we thought it embodied some of Daphne’s interests, the images reminded us of her well curated Pinterest page and pages she created for Taste&Flair; and so, in this October issue of FIRST Magazine, we are dedicating our feature on Beige Is Not A Color to the memory of Daphne – the book is a celebration of colour and beautiful things.

ON THE COVER. Model Marina Plotnikova (Models M) wears Punt Roma pale grey turtle neck and grey pencil skirt, M&S blue cashmere sweater, Aldo woolen headband and faux snake skin shoes. Photography by Matthew B Spiteri.

Styled by Adriana Calleja.

EDITORIAL CONTENT AND SALES MANAGER SEAN ELLUL SELLUL@INDEPENDENT.COM.MT ADVERTISING SUPPORT ILARIA MOUSU IALMOUSU@INDEPENDENT.COM.MT DESIGNER CONRAD BONDIN CBONDIN@INDEPENDENT.COM.MT PRODUCTION MANAGER ANDRE CAMILLERI ACAMILLERI@INDEPENDENT.COM.MT PUBLISHER STANDARD PUBLICATIONS, STANDARD HOUSE, BIRKIKARA HILL, ST JULIAN’S. TEL: 00356 2134 5888, WEB: WWW.INDEPENDENT.COM.MT FACEBOOK FIRSTMAGAZINE PRINTER PRINT-IT. FIRST IS PUBLISHED AS A COMPLIMENTARY MAGAZINE WITH THE MALTA INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY AND IS NOT TO BE SOLD SEPARATELY. NO PART OF THE PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE PRIOR AGREEMENT OF THE PUBLISHER. 4

Image source: A compilation of screenshots from Daphne Caruana Galizia’s Pinterest page.

EDITORIAL

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CONTENTS

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Pierre Bugeja. Step inside the world of an art conservator.

The exhibition Bacon: Books and Painting. Installation photo by Ph

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INTERVIEW

65 questions with art conservator Pierre Bugeja.

ARTS & CULTURE

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PARIS CALLING

No Screaming Popes. Francis Bacon’s landmark exhibition at Pompidou Centre.

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EXHIBITION

States of consciousness.

John Paul Azzopardi’s exhibition Silver River.

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DISCOVERY

Kitchen Cimabue.

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SPECIAL FEATURE DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF DAPHNE CARUANA GALIZIA Beige Is Not A Color.

The full-spectrum world of Carlos Mota.

INSPIRATION

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SKETCH TO CATWALK

Charles & Ron. The Story of a Dress.

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John Paul Azzopardi’s upcoming exhibition Silver River.

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Statement design with Maltese brand Mvintage.

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STATEMENT DESIGN

Mvintage’s Munita Fall Collection.

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SPOTLIGHT

Sustainable Season Statements.

Monsoon’s Artisan Collection Spotlight.

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FASHIONTECH

Chiffon and Silicon Valley.

The Story behind Google Images.

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The dress that almost broke the internet. Photo by Luca Bruno/AP.

Kitchen discovery: Cimabue.

CONTENTS

[O CTO B E R I S SUE 201 9]

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CATWALK

Highlights from Spring Summer 2020.

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FASHION

Stylist’s Cut. Black and white patterns paired with variations of blue for autumn.

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BREAST CANCER AWARENESS Malta’s Breast Screening Programme.

hilippe Migeat, © Centre Pompidou.

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HEALTH & FITNESS Ganesh Handicraft Emporium in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India; photo by Carlos Mota. From the new book Beige Is Not A Color – by Carlos Mota.

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Green machine - are cruciferous vegetables cancer-protective? Richard Geres explains.

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CLASSICS

Jane Eyre translated. How different cultures interpret Charlotte Brontë’s classic.

CLIMATE CHANGE

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YOU ARE FAILING US

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg.

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THE MALTESE SCENARIO

Local impact may be manifested in different ways including extreme weather patterns.

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COMFORT FOOD

Stephen La Rosa‘s potato gnocchi and end of summer flavours.

PROMOTIONS Charles & Ron. The Story of a Dress.

Malta’s Breast Screening Programme.

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Fashion: Stylist’s Cut. Punt Roma striped shirt and checked skirt. Aldo bag, watch and bracelet.

31 New brands at Debenhams.

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We Will Rock You. Going Gaga for Galileo Figaro.

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Mediterranean Culinary Academy’s Stephen La Rosa’s potato gnocchi and end of summer flavours.

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INTERVIEW

65 QUESTIONS As the team at Prevarti get ready to reinstall their biggest restoration project to date, First caught up with its founder and senior art conservator Pierre Bugeja to find out who he admires the most, projects he's been excited to work on and the secret letter he found by chance. hat time did you wake up this morning? 6. How do you start your day? With our children, getting them ready for school and taking our dog for a walk. When the kids leave my wife and I have time for a coffee before the two youngest ones wake up. Then I help get the baby settled and leave for work. So your morning is already packed? Yes, yes, yes, from 6 to about 7.30.

Morning or night person? Night. Messy or neat? I try to be neat, but eventually I become a bit messy, especially if I’m really loaded. Describe yourself in 3 words? Calm. Thinker – I like to think, not just react. I like to help. Responsible. In what I do I’ll try to do my best. What Your favourite guilty pleasure? Sorry I’m stuck – can we come back to that?

Who do you admire the most? My wife. What are you reading right now? That book (pointing) Leonardo da Vinci (The Biography, by Walter Isaacson) – it’s a recent present… sometimes I open it. Favourite book? I’m not really the type who likes to read a lot. Favourite film? Can’t think of one.

What did you want to be growing up? At one point a doctor, but then when I discovered art in me I used to imagine myself as a painter. How did you get into conservation? Although I wanted to work in the arts there weren’t any opportunities, and electronics interested me. Then one day, after 4 years of studies and working for a year, I was at the beach with my wife and in the newspaper she saw that there were entry exams for a new restoration course.

I was interested but was told that I was late because the 5 month

prep course for the entry exams had already started. But they told me that if I wanted to I could try and they gave me a huge pile of books and study notes and told me ‘The exam is in two weeks time. Good luck’. I took two weeks off and just studied. I had to study a lot by heart because I wasn’t familiar with the terminology – words like buttressing... I didn’t have tutors, but I was enjoying it so much that I kept going and surprisingly came out as one of the first in the exams. Then there was supposed to be an interview with the course director but I had decided not to continue.

Why? At the time there wasn’t much restoration work or companies that were going to employ you, and it hadn’t crossed my mind to open a company. So I was convinced that I wasn’t going to continue, but the director told me I couldn’t not continue, that there would be work, and he convinced me. So I left my job and became a student again for 4 years, but there was no work when I finished and I had to register for unemployment.

I was also just getting married, so it was tough. But thank God, with some ‘marketing’ after some time I decided to start on my own and work started coming in from here and there thank God. That’s how Prevarti started? Well at first I worked from home and eventually I needed a place to work as things grew. After a few years I needed help so I employed restorers who had graduated after me. Then I changed the lab, and eventually changed the lab 5 times, always growing. So when did you open Prevarti? Officially in 2006.

Where did you study? The Malta Centre for Restoration at Bighi.

Your speciality? Paintings and polychrome sculptures. If you weren’t conserving art what would you do? I’d work as an artist.▶ 9

INTERVIEW

Top: The Gozo Cathedral dome trompe l’oeil canvas painting restoration in its finishing stages.

Bottom: Cramped quarters. At 20m Pierre Bugeja at work under the the Gozo Cathedral trompe l’oeil dome ceiling before the two canvas sides were brought down for restoration works.

Photo by JJP Zammit.

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◀What’s a typical work day like? My work day is really tied up.

I’ll have a briefing with the restorers in the morning, then meetings with clients, office work, and sometimes I’ll need to go on inspections. I also set time aside for my own restoration work since I don’t like getting stuck in management and paperwork.

I’ll also have deliveries and meetings on ongoing projects, there’s quite a lot. Then when I get back home it’s a replay of the morning with the children which I love. Do you work quietly or with music playing? Both.

What does conservation mean to you in 3 words? As a conservator you have a responsibility to preserve work for future generations, in its most original way as possible. You arrest the problems that exist, you stabilise it, and then you have the aesthetic element on how to present it, depending on the losses. Your favourite thing to restore? I really like Renaissance paintings, their colour. I also like Baroque.

The most exciting thing about work right now? Right now, after a year’s work we’re finishing the restoration and conservation of Gozo Cathedral’s dome trompe l’oeil canvas painting. I’m excited that it’s nearly ready and I know it’s going to be really challenging to install it.

What are you working on at the moment? A project with a lot of work is The Grandmasters’ Palace – we are doing restoration work in the Piano Nobile, in the corridors where you have the lunette paintings and decorative wall paintings.

Then we have a project which I was really happy to get, and which did everything to get, the painting in the chapel in Comino. We’ve worked a lot in Malta and Gozo, so Comino was left (laughing), and this is the only painting in Comino, so I’m really pleased. Also something really interesting is that we are restoring the manuscripts from the Notarial Archives. The work is coming out beautifully and now you can actually handle the books again. And of course, we’re finishing off the Gozo Cathedral trompe l’oeil dome – it’s the largest painting we’ve ever had, each side is 8m by 4.2m.

What’s the most challenging project you’re ever worked on? Well this Gozo Cathedral project – to bring it down – was really challenging. First of all you’re working 20m up.

Space is extremely limited, behind the painting all you have is about 80cm. From there you have to see how you’re going to secure it to lower it. It was really complicated. There wasn’t enough space for the ropes to be as they should be, and although I did an inspection you don’t know if the frame

will take all the weight. When was it painted? 1739. How would they have gotten it up? Probably in the same way, but it could have been higher, because the intervention when they changed the roof isn’t that old, so it could have been higher which would have made it easier.

How are you going to reinstall it? It’s very challenging because it’s very large – it fits out of the lab exactly. You have to figure out how to transport it and how to fit on the boat – if we keep it upright on a trailer it won’t fit since the boat is 4.8m, so we’ll need to modify a trailer since I wouldn’t like to incline them.

Then in Gozo, the trailer can’t get into the Cittadella, so we have to see how to get up... there are a lot of steps (laughing).

Any challenging restorations? Yes, once a painting which was in pieces on the floor. A client phoned and I went to see it and found that the place was quite abandoned and extremely humid. It had so much mould that it didn’t even look like a painting, and when he went to take it down, it had become so fragile with the humidity that it fell into pieces. Literally. It was a jigsaw puzzle, but I went in for the challenge, and after various treatments the pieces were reassembled.

What’s the biggest surprise you’re ever discovered? There have been many discoveries. Once we had a large painting and we suspected something underneath. We took X-rays and consulted with the client and agreed to remove the top layer.

Then in one particular test feet came out, with blood on them, so it could have been a crucifixion – which in fact it was. So we went to the top part to try to find a face and we came across a beard.

So what did you find? A crucifixion scene, with St John and Mary Magdaleine near Jesus; a much better quality painting than the top – a 20th century painting of Grandmaster Pinto, but the quality wasn’t there. Do you know who painted the crucifixion? Yes, with research we found out it was by a Maltese artist, popular in the 18th century, Gian Nicola Buhagiar.

A project you were excited to work on? Once I had a painting which was very dark, and when I started cleaning it a certain quality started emerging which was just out of this world. In fact it was an old master, Guercino. You start asking, is it possible? We carried out research and an expert was engaged, and eventually it was confirmed.

Obviously the client was happy – he had no idea.

Longest project? The Grandmaster Palace one will be long, worked over 3 years... but I wanted to mention a statue which was a surprise.▶

OPERA IS

GOZO OCTOBER 2019 Support Programme Support Programme Support Programme

www.visitgozo.com

INTERVIEW

Top: Detail from one of the 20 lunettes from the Grandmasters’ Palace. The restoration project which includes restoration of wall decorative paintings, will take 3 years.

Bottom: One side of the Gozo Cathedral trompe l’oeil canvas paintings. Each side measures approximately 8m x 4.2m.

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◀Sure, what happened? I had a wooden statue of Saint Isodore from the Kunvent San Frangisk in Gozo which was painted black, except for the skin. Saint Isodore is the patron Saint of farmers and Seville. Losses on the surface made it very clear that the underlayer was gold, so we did tests including a CT scan, and in the scan I saw a sort of space in the middle which remained stuck in my mind. They think it was painted black when the French were here – and as we removed the paint more gold and design emerged. But at the end I kept thinking that there was something inside so I did an endoscopy and inserted a camera, and as I was turning the camera around all of a sudden I saw writing, there was a letter stuck inside. Now this statue had always been thought to be Spanish, but this letter was written in Sicilian dialect. Because of the endoscopy and tight space I had to take multiple photos and my office became like CSI with all the images stuck on the wall with us guessing what each bit said, piecing it together. Dated 10th May 1665 it read something like ‘I, Carlo Carnazza (a sculptor from Catania), made this statue of Saint Isodore, hopefully when someone finds this I will be with the Eternal Father and I pray that when you find this your offerings will be for my soul.’ When I saw it I froze, it was really incredible. So when it came time for the presentation of the restoration I told the priest that we had made a discovery which I would tell him about later. I knew that there was going to be a mass before the presentation so I asked him to offer the mass for a friend – Carlo Carnazza. You can imagine everyone’s surprise afterwards. Obviously if you’ve found this you have to do what you’ve been asked. That was really a moving surprise.

Trickiest thing about restoration? That you take the right decision. You have a responsibility and each case is different.

Do you have a dream artist you would love to work on?

Caravaggio. That would be a dream. I have worked very close

to him at St John’s Co Cathedral in the oratory on the Mattia Preti’s right next to him. Any museum you would like to work on a project with? Maybe the Vatican.

A medium you would like to try restoring? Although as Prevarti we offer restoration for practically everything, everyone really stays in their own specialised field. What is the biggest thing that restorers have done in the past which is really frustrating? Overpaintings.

What frustrates you about the way clients store works of art? Sometimes when I see a painting over a fireplace or under an air conditioner.

Best piece of advice to keep artwork in good condition?

To keep in mind you have something that in a sense is alive, made from material that shrinks and expands according to its environment. The most important thing to keep in mind is that if you’ve put on air conditioning everywhere, or flooded everywhere with light you’re going to have consequences. If you see it in this way you’ll learn to respect it more. Stability is the most important thing. How has restoration changed over the years? A lot. Over the years people have started to understand that some work is priceless and that you have to trust it to specialised restorers and not amateurs.

Favourite historical colour? Lapis lazuli. It’s very very beautiful. Artist you would like to have met? Giuseppe Cali.

Favourite artist of all time? Caravaggio. Dream collection – if you could permanently borrow 1 painting from the Louvre what would it be? Maybe Mona Lisa. From the Vatican? A Raphael.

From any other museum? The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Rembrandt from the Hermitage.

A museum would you like to visit next? I would love to go through the Louvre again. Best exhibition you’ve ever been to? I think the Caravaggio exhibition at the Quirnale in Rome a few years ago. Favourite city in Malta? I like Mdina a lot. Favourite city outside Malta? Florence. A country you’ve always wanted to visit? New Zealand. If you weren’t living in Malta, where would you live? Australia. How do you like to unwind? Watching a movie or maybe going somewhere with a great view. If you had a superpower what would it be? To be able to go back in time to really know who painted a painting. For example when they say a certain painting is attributed to a particular artist, I’d have the power to go back to see who really painted it.

Have you ever come across a forgery or something you suspected wasn’t what the owner thought it was? Yes, for example, someone would have just bought it and it would have a signature, but the signature would have been tampered with, or would have a signature underneath, or wouldn’t have a signature at all. Yes these things come up. Dream lunch – 3 historical artists you would invite? Giuseppe Cali. Mattia Preti, to ask him what he painted, because there are many paintings attributed to him, maybe too many. And Rembrandt, because his work is very spiritual. Dream dinner – a contemporary artist you would invite? Roberto Ferri.

Best piece of advice you’ve ever received? As soon as the day starts, to make the sign of the cross, and ask the Holy Spirit to help me. Three things you can’t live without? My family – my wife and children, and God, my two pilasters. Before I used to say work, work used to be everything, now I’ve rearranged my priorities. Something you would like more time to work on? My art. The biggest surprise you’ve ever had? What are the other questions?

Something you’ve kept from childhood? And the final question – what’s one question we haven’t asked you? If you’re married and how many children you have.

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PARIS CALLING

NO SCREAMING POPES. BACON: BOOKS AND PAINTING. THE LAST MAJOR FRENCH EX HIBITION OF FRANCIS BACON WAS HELD IN 1996 AT THE POMPIDOU CENTRE IN PARIS. NOW MORE THAN 20 Y EARS LATER, A NEW LANDMARK EX HIBITION CURATED BY DIDIER OTTINGER EX AMINES THE LAST TWO DECADES OF BACON’S WORK – HIS POST-POPE PERIOD – THROUGH HIS LITERARY INSPIRATIONS. PHOTOGRAPHY BY PHILIPPE MIGEAT, COURTESY OF POMPIDOU CENTRE. hile Francis Bacon may be best known for his screaming Pope paintings, this new exhibition at the Pompidou Centre focuses on Bacon's post-Pope paintings. The exhibition spans six rooms along the Pompidou Centre's galleries, and looks at how literary figures influenced the artist's work. The rooms play readings of excerpts of texts taken from Francis Bacon’s library including Aeschylus, Nietzsche, Bataille, Leiris, Conrad and Eliot. Not only did these authors inspire Bacon’s work and motifs directly, they also shared a poetic world, forming a ‘spiritual family’ the artist identified with.

The inventory of Francis Bacon’s library lists more than a thousand works. While denying any interpretation of a text in his paintings, Francis Bacon, nevertheless admitted that literature represented a powerful stimulus for his imagination. Rather than giving shape to a story, poetry, novels and philosophy inspired a ‘general atmosphere’and ‘images’ which emerged like the Furies in his paintings.

The exhibition at the Pompidou Centre focuses on works 14

produced by Bacon in the last two decades of his career. It consists of sixty paintings (including 12 triptychs, in addition to a series of portraits and self-portraits) from major private and public collections. From 1971 to 1992 (the year of the artist’s death), his painting style was marked by its simplification and intensification. His colours acquired new depth, drawn from a unique chromatic register of yellow, pink and saturated orange.

1971 was a turning point for Bacon. The exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris earned him international acclaim, while the tragic death of his lover, just a few days before the exhibition opened, gave way to a period marked by guilt and represented by a proliferation of the symbolic and mythological form of the Erinyes (the Furies of Greek mythology) in his work. The ‘Black’ Triptychs painted in memory of his deceased partner, all presented at the exhibition, commemorate this loss.

Bacon: Books and Painting (Bacon en toutes lettres) is at the Pompidou Centre, Paris, until 20 January. Online ticket and time slot reservation required. To reserve: www.billetterie.centrepompidou.fr

PARIS CALLING

Installation photography from the exhibition Bacon: Books and Painting. Photo: Philippe Migeat, © Centre Pompidou.

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FEATURE DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF DAPHNE CARUANA GALIZIA

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BEIGE ISNOT ACOLOR

The full-spectrum world of Carlos Mota Formerly international style editor for AD and editor at large for Elle Decor, Carlos Mota is a creative consultant with extensive experience in styling, interior design, product design, and advertising campaigns.

In this gorgeous 320 page volume, he has culled some 280 of his favorite images, all wholly different but all sharing one quality: the beauty of color, both literally and figuratively. Photography courtesy of Vendome Press. land is anathema to Carlos Mota. As he travels the world producing feature stories and ad campaigns for countless publications and companies, he exults in every spark of originality and creativity he sees.

He not only documents his sightings with his camera but also collects images by a Who’s Who of interiors and architectural photographers.

For Beige Is Not A Color, Mota has culled some 280 of his favorite images, all wholly different but all sharing one quality: the beauty of colour, both literally and figuratively. There are interiors, table settings, textiles, spices, jewels, floral arrangements, tiles, paintings, sculptures, architectural ornamentation – whatever captures his discriminating eye.

Peppered with quotes about colour and beauty by a host of designers, Beige Is Not a Color is the antithesis of bland and as aspirational as it is inspirational. ▶

Left: Carlos Mota’s residence in New York City.

Photograph by Björn Wallander. Top right: Private residence, Santo Domingo, DR. Photograph by Björn Wallander. Right: Beige Is Not a Color book cover.

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Bar Palladio in Jaipur, India. Interior design by Marie-Anne Oudejans.

Photograph by Sartek Kasliwal.

◀ ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Carlos Mota is a creative consultant with extensive experience in styling, interior design, product design, and advertising campaigns. Formerly international style editor for AD and editor at large for Elle Decor, he has styled and produced feature stories for AD, Elle Decor, Interior Design, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, T Magazine, New York magazine, Travel + Leisure, and O, among others. He has created environments for catalogues and ad campaigns for major companies and brands, including Neiman Marcus, Saks, Bloomingdale’s, Estée Lauder, Pottery Barn, Adrienne Vittadini, Jones New York, Nautica, and Max Mara. And he has organized special events for such high profile organizations and companies as DIFFA, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, AD, Elle Decor, Chanel, Valentino, and Missoni.

He lives in New York.

Beige Is Not a Color, by Carlos Mota. Published by Vendome Press. Hardcover. 254 x 330 mm portrait, 320 pages, 280 colour illustrations. GBP £60.

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Above: El Fenn Hotel in Marrakech, Morocco. Interior design by Vanessa Branson, Howell James, and Frederic Scholl. Photograph by Kasia Gatkowska.

Left: El Fenn Hotel in Marrakech, Morocco.

Interior design by Vanessa Branson, Howell James, and Frederic Scholl.

Pphotograph by David Loftus.

Right: Residence of Marie-Anne Oudejans, Jaipur, design by Oudejans.

Photograph by Franรงois Halard for Architectural Digest.

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INSPIRATION

THE STORY OF A DRESS

SKETCH TO CATWALK When we interviewed designer Ron Van Maarschalkerweerd Borg at the Charles & Ron studio for the June edition of First Magazine, this dress caught our eye. Here Ron shares an intimate behind the scenes look at the design process from sketch to dress, and discusses the inspiration for the Charles & Ron Fall Winter 2019 collection. Photography by Nathalie Mitovski.

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INSPIRATION

he inspirational starting point for this collection was some vintage family jewellery pieces that we discovered while doing research about Maltese jewellery traditions. The tradition of gold and ornate jewellery pieces to show off one’s status and religion has always been strongly present in Maltese culture, and it was an intriguing image of Saint Fabiola on a gold brooch that further inspired the design process for Fall Winter 2019/2020.

The jewellery featured in the particular print used for this dress are vintage pieces of Maltese jewellery including some pieces belonging to Charles’s family. The print also includes a ring with an image of his grandmother.

When we work on prints we always start off with separate drawings or in this case photographs. The photos of the individual jewellery pieces were taken by Carlton Agius, our in-house photographer. Once the images were ready, Charles, Carlton and myself worked on the layout and overall look of the print to be used.

Once the print is finalized we do the first sketch and visual of how the dress will look.

The fabric we chose for this is a very heavy satin with a silver base colour which creates a very shiny result once printed. The head scarf was printed on silk twill.

Once the fabric arrives Charles cuts according to the design and together with the team at the studio he will finish the dress. This particular design was premiered during New York Fashion Week and was worn by international top model Daniela Aciu.

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INSPIRATION

MVINTAGE’S MUNITA FALL COLLECTION

STATEMENT

DESIGN The new Munita all-gold jewellery collection by Maltese brand Mvintage is inspired by old Maltese 2 Mils and 25 cent coins, and romantic vintage jewellery. It is a graceful step back into a simpler and more elegant time in Malta, entwined with today’s modern elegance and flair, says founder and jewellery designer Krystle Penza. Main photography by Matthew B Spiteri.

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This September Maltese jewellery brand Mvintage opened their new concept store in Iklin, their fourth store besides The Point Shopping Mall, Paola and Valletta. The launch coincided with the launch of the brand’s fall collection Munita.

The inspiration for Munita stems from Krystle Penza's childhood.

Whenever she visited her grandmother, who lived in Valletta, she would always sneak a coin into her grand-daughter’s hand with a sweet wink and smile telling her to ‘buy something nice’.

‘I wanted to capture the charm of a simpler time in Malta’s history. I began by sketching the shapes and motifs of old Maltese coins which were stored in my childhood home.

My ideas for this collection materialised from the jewellery which was very much part of my past and that of my predecessors.

The result is a collection infused with romantic memories of times gone by’, explains Krystle. The Munita Fall Collection features jewellery designed with delicate etching, detailed floral designs, geometric shapes and serrated edges. The pendants and chains are rich with meaning, but versatile so people can create combinations that help them tell their own stories.

SPOTLIGHT

SUSTAINABLE SEASON STATEMENTS

MONSOON’S ARTISAN COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT

Hand-craft has always been at the heart of what we do, says Monsoon's Directors Jackie Urpani and Theresa Bartolo Parnis. Helping to sustain age-old hand-craft techniques and traditions, our beautiful new ARTISAN collection showcases truly wonderful work by skilled craftspeople.

Here at Monsoon, working with artisans is a key part of who we are and what we do. To celebrate and show our appreciation for the people who make some of our most beautiful things, we’d like you meet one of our talented craftspeople, Khwaja-ud-din, and introduce you to one of the beautiful pieces he’s hand-embellished for us.

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One of Monsoon's talented craftspeople, Khwaja-ud-din, an embellishment artisan.

RTISAN celebrates the refined skill of our individual artisan workers, ensuring that they are paid appropriately for their valuable contribution to our products. Created to ensure sustainable livelihoods for our garment makers, the Artisan clothing collection is a showcase of incredible handcraft and traditional techniques.

Each piece from this collection guarantees a fair and ethical journey from design house to hanger, by way of skilled artisans across Asia. Discover party dresses with thousands of handplaced beads, finely embroidered tops, along with tie-dyed and woodblockprinted clothing.

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eet the Artisan. Khwaja-uddin, an embellishment artisan, has been working at one of our supplier units in Delhi for over a year. Originally from Bareilly, he moved to Delhi with his cousin seeking better opportunities to help support his family.

Fascinated by the garment factories he

looked for similar work but couldn’t find what he wanted. After many years working with small boutiques he found work at the unit. He says he is happy working at a place where he feels safe and is able to save for his family.

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he Monsoon Accessorize Trust.

Our charitable Trust (founded in 1994) now helps over 10,000 disadvantaged women and children in Asia, each year, through a range of education, healthcare and incomegeneration projects. Our focus is on driving meaningful and sustainable change. Current initiatives include a programme of healthcare provision in remote villages of Rajhastan (India), special support for a Delhi hostel sheltering homeless children, and an initiative to help rebuild the silk cultivation industry in Afghanistan.

Other projects include employment for women artisans in Kabul and support for disabled and orphaned children in Sri Lanka.

Everyone who shops with us, and most especially everyone who buys something from our ARTISAN range, is enabling us to help sustain age-old traditional hand-crafts as well as the livelihoods of skilled craftspeople.

S

taying true to our green-fingered roots. The first Monsoon collections featured gorgeous bohemian clothes made in Indian villages using hand-loomed cotton fabrics, organic vegetable dyes and artisanal block-printing techniques.

And, although we’ve grown into a global brand, we’ve never lost our concern for the environment or commitment to ethical trading. So, as well as striving to do right by the people who make our beautiful things, we work hard to reduce the environmental impact of all that we do.

Monsoon is now under one roof, centrally located in Tigne Street, Sliema, just around the corner from the top of Bisazza Street. T: +356 2707 2890.

Instagram or Facebook: MonsoonMalta.

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Odeya Foil Print Maxi Dress.

SPOTLIGHT

Sansa Embellished Maxi Dress.

Vanessa Twist Maxi Dress (left), Katya Longline Cape.

Lilian Plisse Jumpsuit.

Zoe Print Hanky Hem Dress (left), Dhalia Pleated Maxi Dress.

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FASHIONTECH

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FASHIONTECH

Chiffon and SiliconValley HOW A LEAF PRINT VERSACE DRESS CATAPULTED GOOGLE IMAGES

It’s the end of Versace’s Spring Summer 2020 Womenswear Collection this September and Donatella Versace’s voice projects over the audience “Ok Google, show me images of the Versace Jungle Dress”. “Have a look at these pictures”, responds Google, projecting images of Jennifer Lopez wearing the Versace dress at the Grammys in 2000. “Ok Google, now show me the real jungle dress.” “Sure Donatella, here’s the real dress”, and Jennifer Lopez emerges in flowing green leaf-print chiffon, bringing internet history to life. Photography by Luca Bruno/AP. ennifer Lopez wowed Milan Fashion Week at the Versace show this September when she emerged wearing a version of the jungle dress that nearly broke the internet almost 20 years ago. The original jungle dress not only made fashion history, but Google history.

According to Versace “debuting in the Spring-Summer 2000 Collection, the jungle print dress made multiple appearances on the red carpet. At the 2000 Grammy Awards, Jennifer drew international attention when she wore the unique runway design. Millions of people took to the internet to see Jennifer in the legendary dress, making it one the most popular search queries for Google at the time. However, the desired results – an image of the star and the gown – could not surface on the search page. The epic red-carpet look, and the excitement

it created, inspired the team to create Google Images.”

Writing on Project Syndicate in 2015, Google’s then Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt wrote: “ people wanted more than just text. This first became apparent after the 2000 Grammy Awards, where Jennifer Lopez wore a green dress that, well, caught the world’s attention. At the time, it was the most popular search query we had ever seen. But we had no surefire way of getting users exactly what they wanted: J-Lo wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born.”

“It was amazing! The world had the same reaction: jaw dropping. Today we live in a technological world, but back then, one event prompted the creation of a new tool that now has become part of our lives.” Donatella Versace. (Versace quotes source: Versace YouTube).

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2

CATWALK

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NEW NEW YORK, YORK, MILAN MILAN AND AND PARIS PARIS

BRIGHT HIGHLIGHTER Spring Summer 2020

Yellow slinked across New York, Milan and Paris Spring Summer 2020 shows this September in a range from bold jewel to more muted tones.

Here's a preview of some key looks for next spring's yellow trend.

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1. Moschino Spring Summer 2020 collection, Milan Fashion Week. Photo Luca Bruno/AP. 2. Fendi Spring Summer 2020 collection, Milan Fashion Week. Photo Luca Bruno/AP. 3. Balmain Ready To Wear Spring Summer 2020 Collection, Paris Fashion Week September. Photo by Thibault Camus/AP. 4. Balmain Ready To Wear Spring Summer 2020 Collection, Paris Fashion Week - September. Photo by Thibault Camus/AP. 5. Balmain Ready To Wear Spring Summer 2020 Collection, Paris Fashion Week September. Photo by Thibault Camus/AP. 6. Dries van Noten Ready To Wear Spring Summer 2020, Paris Fashion Week. Photo Francois Mori/AP. 7. Oscar de la Renta Spring Summer 2020 collection, New York Fashion Week. Photo by Frank Franklin II/AP. 8.

Vuitton Ready To Wear Spring Summer 2020, Paris Fashion Week. Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision /AP. 9. Charles & Ron Spring Summer 2020, New York Fashion Week. Photo by Arun Nevader. 10. Charles & Ron Spring Summer 2020, New York Fashion Week.

Photo by Arun Nevader.

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CATWALK

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TRENDS

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2 4

New brands to look out for at Debenhams this month: 1. Oasis, 2. Vero Moda, 3. Triumph, 4. Sloggi and 5. Tripp.

DEBENHAMS BRINGS NEW EXCLUSIVE

BRANDS TO MALTA This month, Debenhams brings four new and exclusive brands to Malta: Vero Moda fashion, Triumph lingerie, Sloggi lingerie, and the UK’s best-selling luggage brand Tripp. In tandem, Debenhams introduces Oasis Fashions at its flagship location at The Point Shopping Mall. hat’s all the buzz about? Famous fashion line Vero Moda is known for its sophisticated styles and A-list campaign models, from Kate Moss to Gisele Bündchen.

Established in 1886, Triumph’s seductive styles combine quality fabric and workmanship. Sloggi creates the most wearable, innovative bodywear in the world. The UK’s #1 selling luggage brand, Tripp’s colourful styles boast a 5-year guarantee.

Iconic British fashion brand Oasis’s Tower Road boutique and Oasis at Debenhams offer Malta’s customers the choice of two exceptional shopping experiences.

5 But that’s not all. At Debenhams, something new is always arriving, and something stylish is always happening.

More new exclusive brands are coming to Debenhams from this autumn!

FASHION

STYLIST’S CUT New look, new season, new cool. Adriana Calleja mixes black and white patterns with variations of blue in hot cool tones for autumn.

Photography by Matthew B Spiteri. Hair Neville Roman Zammit.

Makeup Amanda Greaves. Model Marina Plotnikova (Models M).

Shot on location in Qormi.

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FASHION

PUNT ROMA STRIPED SHIRT AND CHECKED SKIRT. ALDO STILETTOS, BAG, WATCH AND BRACELET. 33

FASHION

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M&S CROPPED PATTERNED TROUSERS, CASHMERE SWEATER AND SUEDE BIKER JACKET. ALDO OXFORD SHOES AND EARRINGS.

FASHION

LACE SHIFT DRESS FROM KWADDRO. BERET, NECK SCARF AND WHITE LACE TIGHTS ALL STYLIST'S OWN.

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FASHION

PUNT ROMA PALE GREY TURTLE NECK AND GREY PENCIL SKIRT. M&S BLUE CASHMERE SWEATER. ALDO WOOLEN HEADBAND AND FAUX SNAKE SKIN SHOES. 36

FASHION

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FASHION

M&S SKINNY LEGGINGS. PUNT ROMA DRAPE FRONT CARDIGAN. ALDO BOOTS, SUNGLASSES AND EARRINGS. HARNESS STYLIST'S OWN. 38

FASHION M&S BLACK AND WHITE PATTERNED DRESS, AND FAUX SHEARLING COAT. HAT STYLIST'S OWN.

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BREAST CANCER AWARENESS

MALTA’S BREAST SCREENING PROGRAMME

BARING ALL. WILL YOU READ THIS?

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BREAST CANCER AWARENESS IN MALTA APPROX IMATELY 300 WOMEN A Y EAR ARE DIAGNOSED WITH BREAST CANCER. IF DETECTED AT AN EARLY STAGE, THERE IS A GREATER CHANCE OF SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT OR RECOVERY . THE AIM OF BREAST SCREENING IS TO FIND BREAST CANCERS EARLY , WHEN THEY ARE STILL TOO SMALL TO SEE OR FEEL. BREAST SCREENING IS CURRENTLY OFFERED TO ALL WOMEN AGED BETWEEN 50 AND 68 Y EARS OF AGE (FOR 2019, THIS INCLUDES THOSE BORN BETWEEN 1950 AND 1969) EVERY TWO AND A HALF Y EARS, SINCE MOST CASES OF BREAST CANCER OCCUR IN WOMEN OVER 50. THIS ARTICLE BREAKS THINGS DOWN, ANSWERING SOME OF THE MOST COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT MALTA'S BREAST SCREENING PROGRAMME. PHOTOGRAPHY

BY ANNIE SPRATT.

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hat does the screening test involve?

Breast screening involves having a mammogram, which is an X-ray of the breasts. The screening mammogram, carried out at the National Screening Centre by a female radiographer, involves compression of the breast for a few seconds. The mammogram takes a few minutes, so a breast screening generally lasts about 30 minutes in all.

When you are called in to the mammography room the radiographer will start by explaining the procedure, giving you time to undress to the waist. The radiographer will then place your breast on the mammogram machine and gently but firmly lower a plate onto it. This helps keep the breast in place to ensure the mammogram images are clear. In most cases two images of each breast are taken, one from above and one from the side of the breast.

Compression of the breast is necessary for the images to be clear, and while most women describe the procedure as uncomfortable, a few find it painful. The discomfort is brief as compression is only maintained for a few seconds for each image.

On the day of the mammogram do not use deodorant, talc or creams around the breast area.

Keep in mind that since you have to undress to the waist for the mammogram, you may prefer to wear a skirt or trousers instead of a dress. If you have breast implants or think you might be pregnant, inform the radiographer before taking the mammogram.

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hat are the potential benefits and risks of breast screening? Most experts agree that regular breast screening is beneficial to detect breast cancer early. A mammogram can detect small changes in breast tissue which may indicate cancers which are too small to be felt either by you or by a doctor. The earlier breast cancer is diagnosed, the greater the chance of survival. If breast cancer is detected at an early stage it is also less likely that you will need a mastectomy (removal of the breast) or chemotherapy.

The main risk of breast screening is that it may also pick up cancers that would never have gone on to cause symptoms or become lifethreatening. This may result in unnecessary tests and treatment as well as anxiety. There is also very small risk that a cancer diagnosis might be missed on screening (the person who is screened is given an all-clear result when there is in fact a tumour). Mammography is a type of x-ray and it involves exposing the breasts to a small amount of radiation. This is significantly less than the natural background radiation that a person is exposed to in one year and the benefits of screening are generally considered to outweigh the risks from this small dose of radiation. Evidence from international research estimates that for every 200 women screened, breast screening saves the life of one woman and results in three women being diagnosed with a cancer that would never have become life-threatening.

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esults and the next step. Screening mammograms are reviewed by two radiologists and in the case of normal results, these are sent to you by post after around three weeks. In some cases, further tests may be required because mammogram images were unclear or an abnormality is suspected. In these situations, you will be contacted by phone and given an appointment to attend the weekly recall clinic. Being asked to attend the recall clinic does not mean that you have breast cancer.

At the recall clinic further mammogram images, breast ultrasound and if necessary even a biopsy (taking a sample of breast tissue using a specially-designed needle) may be taken, according to the individual case. Imaging results are reviewed by a radiologist during the recall clinic and you will be informed of the result shortly after the images are taken. Biopsy results are issued after 1-2 weeks as these need to be sent to Mater Dei Hospital and processed by the pathology laboratory. If a biopsy is taken, you will be given an appointment to discuss the biopsy results with a breast surgeon at the Screening Centre. If you are diagnosed with breast cancer, you will be referred to the Breast Clinic at Mater Dei Hospital for specialised care. The breast screening team will liaise with the hospital team to pass on details of your case and arrange an urgent follow-up appointment.

The Breast Screening Programme is a screening service that offers scheduled appointments for women who are well and does not offer a walk-in service for women experiencing breast symptoms. If you have noticed anything unusual in your breasts that you are concerned about do not wait for your screening appointment, speak to your family doctor who may refer you to the Breast Clinic at Mater Dei Hospital. If you have a family history of breast cancer, you may have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than average. Speak to your family doctor, who may decide to refer you for genetic testing according to your specific situation. If you fall within the age group eligible for screening (50 to 68 years of age) but have not received a screening invitation, phone the Screening Centre for an appointment. If you have any questions or difficulties regarding breast screening phone the Screening Centre on 2122 7470/1, send an email on breast.screening@gov.mt, or visit the Screening Centre at 17 Lascaris Wharf, Valletta.

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HEALTH & FITNESS

GREEN

The family of cruciferous vegetables that includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, rucola, radishes, watercress, wasabi, mustard and other plants, has been studied extensively for their cancerprotective properties.

Cruciferous vegetables are high in flavonoids such a quercetin, selenium and glucosinolates, which have a potent odour and taste.

When chopped, masticated and digested, glucosinolates are chemically transformed to isothiocyanates, such as sulforaphane, which is the bioactive form. The total amount of bioactive glucosinolates absorbed from a meal depends on the type of cruciferous vegetable, the food preparation conditions and gut microflora of the person consuming the meal.

Studies of isothiocyanates in test tubes and rodents have demonstrated their potent anticarcinogenic properties. This has been attributed to their ability to alter detoxification pathways in the body, leading to a decreased activation of potential carcinogens and an increased excretion of carcinogens. In cases where cancer is already present, cruciferous vegetables can slow down the growth of tumours and even induce cancer cell death.

Some studies have shown that consuming cruciferous vegetables 3 times per week can cut the risk of colon cancer and prostate cancer by 40-50%. Sulforaphane has also been shown to reduce sensitivity to UV radiation by reducing oxidative stress.

MACHINE S ARE CRUCIFEROUS VEGETABLES CANCER-PROTECTIVE? National Health Departments around the world urge increased consumption of fruits and vegetables. The American Institute of Cancer Research estimates that if the only dietary change made was to increase the daily intake of fruits and vegetables to 5 servings per day, cancer rates could decline by as much as 20%.

Among the reasons cited for this health benefit are that fruits and vegetables are excellent sources of fibre, vitamins, and minerals. In addition, they contain non-nutritive components that may provide substantial health benefits beyond basic nutrition, explains Richard Geres, Fitness Consultant & Registered Nutritionist.

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o how do you eat cruciferous vegetables for maximum benefit? How much sulforaphane you absorb from your food depends on a number of factors. Sulforaphane is released only when the vegetable is chopped or chewed, in which case the glucosinolates mix with an enzyme in the vegetable called myrosinase, forming sulforaphane. Studies show that excessive cooking can cause 18-59% of glucosinolates to be lost in the water while also deactivating the myrosinase enzyme. While cooking does reduce the concentrations of sulforaphane to some extent, eating cooked cruciferous vegetables is still better than not eating any at all. Even when the myrosinase enzyme is deactivated during cooking, bacteria in the intestinal tract still make the formation and absorption of sulforaphane possible.

Prolonged storage, even at optimal refrigeration also reduces the amount of sulforaphane released, and chewing raw cruciferous vegetables that have been stored for a short period of time is likely to provide the most sulforaphane.

The degree to which people benefit from an increased intake of cruciferous vegetables may be a matter of genetics. People inherit different capacities to metabolize and eliminate sulforaphane, though at this point, there’s no way to know who may benefit the most.

Besides possessing these potential cancer-protective properties, cruciferous vegetables are also high in fibre, low in calories and rich in nutrients, and a good source of vitamins C, E and K, folate and minerals. The National Cancer Institute recommends consuming five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day while the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that onehalf of each plate at a meal consist of fruits and vegetables. But no official recommendations have been established specifically for the consumption of cruciferous vegetables.

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ny potential risks? People taking blood-thinning medications should watch their cruciferous vegetable intake, since the vegetable's vitamin K content may interfere with the medication's effectiveness. Those with hypothyroidism should also limit their intake. Juicing raw cruciferous vegetables is not recommended in such cases.

Some experts recommend not exceeding half a cup of cooked cruciferous vegetables per day in patients with underactive thyroid, however this is still a considerable amount that can be safely consumed for many people.

Here are 7 top tips for selecting and preparing cruciferous vegetables. Ensure green leaves are fresh, with no wilting or yellowing. Wash the cruciferous vegetables with cool running water just before use. Steam, microwave, stir-fry, or sautĂŠ to retain maximum levels of glucosinolates, folate, and vitamin C. Cook just until tender and crisp, with greens still bright to avoid bad odours.

Try roasting with olive oil, garlic, and your favourite herbs.

Enjoy raw with hummus and if the flavour is too strong to enjoy raw, steam or blanch briefly, cool in ice water, and serve cold.

Finally try adding fresh to green salads.

going

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CLASSICS

Charlotte Brontë, 1857, artist George Richmond.

The New York Public Library, Digital Collections

JANE EYRE TRANSLATED

57 LANGUAGES SHOW HOW DIFFERENT CULTURES INTERPR CHARLOTTE BRONT CLASSIC NOVEL 44

CLASSICS

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RET TË’S

B

ut let’s also remember that translation has always been an engine of culture. Literary classics – as well as modern bestsellers – reach more readers through translation than the language they were written in. Take Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: it has been translated into at least 57 languages, at least 593 times.

This changes how we think about Jane Eyre. What was a thoroughly English book – anchored to Yorkshire and published in 1847 – becomes a multilingual, ever-changing global text, continually putting down roots in different cultures. In Iran there have been 29 translations of Jane Eyre since 1980. When Korean is taught in a school in Vietnam, a translation of Jane Eyre is on the syllabus, as an example of Korean literature.

It also changes how we have to study the novel. I couldn’t hope to grasp Jane Eyre as a global phenomenon by myself, so everything I have found out has been thanks to a group of 43 co-researchers in many different countries, as part of the Prismatic Translation project*.

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ranslation is creative. People often think that translations are meant to reproduce their source texts, like a photocopier. But this is a long way wide of the mark, because of course every language is different. In fact, the process is much more complicated – and interesting. Because you can never say exactly the same thing in another language, translators use their imaginations to write the book again, only with different materials, for readers with different expectations. It is more like making a sculpture than taking a photo.

You can see this right away from how the title gets re-moulded into different shapes. In Japanese in 1896 it became Riso Kaijin (An Ideal Lady – translated by Futo Mizutani), in Portuguese in 1941 it was A Paixão de Jane Eyre (The Passion of Jane Eyre – translated by “Mécia”). In Italian in 1958 it became La porta chiusa (The Shut Door – translator unknown) and in Turkish in 2010 it was rendered as Yıllar Sonra Gelen Mutluluk (Happiness Comes After Many Years – translated by Ceren Taştan).

My favourite of these metamorphic titles is the Chinese one invented by Fang Li in 1954 and copied by almost every Chinese translator since: two of the characters that can make a sound like “Jane Eyre” can also mean “simple love” – so the title says both those things together: Jianai.

Even small linguistic details can go through fascinating transformations. Take pronouns. In English, we only have one way of saying “you” in the singular. But even languages that are very close to English, such as French, German or Italian, do something different. They have a distinction between a formal “you” (vous in French) and a more intimate kind of “you” (tu). So in those languages there is the potential for a really important moment in the novel which simply can’t happen in English.

Do Jane and Rochester ever call each other “tu”?

As it turns out, in French they don’t (or at least not in any of the translations we have studied). But in German they do. One of my co-researchers, Mary Frank, has looked at translations from 1887 by Marie von Borch and 1979 by Helmut Kossodo. She has found that, in both, Rochester only switches into the intimate form of you, “du”, when he first proposes. But Jane does not reciprocate. It is only in

the amazing telepathic moment near the end of the book, when she hears Rochester’s voice calling to her across the moors, that she uses the “du” form of the verb to cry out the equivalent of “Wait for me!”

Rochester’s tenderness is answered at last.

Should we think of this as a nuance added by the translators? Or as something that was all along somehow present in the English text, though invisible? What would Charlotte Brontë have done if she had been using German – or French (in which she did write essays and letters) with its different resources? These questions are probably impossible to answer – and if you turn to Korean, for example, which has many pronouns for different levels of formality as I have learned from Sowon Park, the picture gets even more complicated.

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eminist passion. Jane is “passionate” in all sorts of ways. When she is a child she resists bullying by her cousins and stands up for her rights at school; as an adult she feels passionate love for Rochester. “Passion” in the novel can suggest anger, stubbornness, suffering, generosity, desire and love.

By using the word in all these ways, Charlotte Brontë was making a feminist argument. She was saying that, for a woman in the early Victorian period, love did not have to be something passive, a matter of being admired. Instead, it was connected to anger and justice. It could be a means of selfassertion.

This feminist charge in the novel is part of what has made it so popular across the globe. Throughout Europe in the mid-to-late 19th century, and throughout East Asia in the mid-to-late 20th, some translators and readers have been thrilled – others shocked. And of course, because the cultures and languages are different, the novel’s energies have had to be channelled in different ways.

Most languages have no single word that can cover the same range as Brontë’s “passion”, so they slice up its meanings differently. Interestingly, this often divides the angry (passionate) young Jane from her mature self, and connects her to Bertha Mason, Rochester’s brutalised first wife who is locked up in the attic of his mansion.

In Persian – as Kayvan Tahmasebian has found out – “passion” is translated by a wide range of words that separate the elements of love, desire, anger and excitement. You might view this as loss (the range of “passion” has disappeared!) but it is also a kind of gain (look at all these different nuances!)

The most famous sentence in the novel: “Reader, I married him”, is also one of the most provocative, as translations can help us see. In Slovenian – as researcher Jernej Habjan tells me – it becomes the equivalent of “Reader, we got married”. Meanwhile, all the Persian translations we have seen so far have squashed Jane’s self-assertion – they give the equivalent of: “Reader, he married me”. Even today, Jane Eyre has a radical power. It will generate ever more translations. *The Prismatic Translation Project project sets out to discover how the dizzying textual and linguistic proliferation of Jane Eyre can be understood, and what can be learnt from studying it. For more information on the The Prismatic Jane Eyre Project visit prismaticjaneeyre.org

Originally published on The Conversation. Matthew Reynolds is a Professor of English and Comparative Criticism; Tutorial Fellow, St Anne’s College, University of Oxford.

Translators are the unsung heroes of literature. Or, to be fair, largely unsung – they have a share in the International Booker Prize which recognises author and translator, who divide the £50,000 prize money and there is International Translation Day (celebrated yearly on September 30). It’s a chance to celebrate the small presses which publish translated novels and poems, as well as the amazing advances in online translation and, above all, the human translators whose skills matter now more than ever, explains University of Oxford's Matthew Reynolds.

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EXHIBITION

States of consciousness Silver River presents the first collection of paintings by the artist John Paul Azzopardi at Lily Agius Gallery. In a collection of works on paper, the exhibition explores different states of consciousness, investigating the type of conditions, settings and circumstances that produce different forms of refined and altered states of awareness, alertness or raptness where time seemingly falters, and space dilates. Such states provide experience with a different altered sense of how we usually define or understand personhood.

n his research and analysis JP Azzopardi seeks to explore the fundamental conditions that create these states, the object and content of internal/external perception, and the cognitive apparatus of one’s awareness, or core self.

Extra-ordinary states of consciousness affect subjective time and space. In such situations time, space and the awareness of oneself as a river of consciousness, are experienced diversely as types of felt time (Wittmann, M., Felt Time, 2016).

In the event of meditation, active immersion, deep sleep, moments of terror and transient loss of oneself, perception engages differently in selfreflection and the world. Therefore, an alteration to the regular awareness of the internal conscious experience of time and space becomes apparent.

This, for example, can happen in a rather simple and immediate manner when one’s awareness becomes absorbed in any of nature’s phenomena, momentarily forgetting oneself as mental and emotional experience merges in the sublime.

Each work portrays different types of circumstances and phenomena wherein such states are experienced.

Silver River opens at the Lily Agius Gallery, Cathedral Street, Sliema 30th October 2019 to 16th November, 10-1pm and 2-7pm Monday to Saturday. For more information contact Lily Agius on +356 9929 2488 or info@lilyagiusgallery.com.

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Above: At the Heart of it All, pencil and acrylic on target paper, 40x30cm. Left: Shadow Time, pencil and acrylic on target paper, 40x30cm.

CLIMATE CHANGE

YOU ARE FAILING US Meet Greta Thunberg - the Swedish 16 year old climate and environmental activist with Asperger’s. In August 2018 Greta began spending her school days outside the Swedish parliament, calling for stronger action on global warming by holding up a sign saying “School strike for climate”. Just over a year later, this past September, she stepped onto the biggest of global stages to face the most diverse of audiences, and she made it count.

Addressing the UN General Assembly Climate Action Summit in New York, shaming leaders over and over for their inaction she kept saying: “How dare you?” to some of the world’s most powerful people. “You are failing us,” she told them.

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Scolded for doing little, leader after leader promised the United Nations this September to do more to prevent a warming world from reaching even more dangerous levels.

But before world leaders made their promises in threeminute speeches, the 16-year-old Greta Thunberg gave an emotional appeal in which she scolded the leaders with her repeated phrase, “How dare you.”

“This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you have come to us young people for hope. How dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”

“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and yet all you can talk about is money,” she said. “You are failing us.”

Later, she and 15 other youth activists filed a formal complaint with an arm of the U.N. that protects children’s rights, saying that governments’ lack of action on warming is violating their basic rights. In the complaint the youths from a dozen countries and ranging in ages from 8 to 17, contended their rights are being violated not just because of severe weather, but also because of lack of food and water and an increase in refugees. The UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child allows youth or adults to directly appeal to the United Nations if they feel a country is violating children’s rights.

Thunberg told the U.N. that even the strictest emission cuts being talked about only gives the world a 50% chance of limiting future warming to another 0.4 degrees Celsius from now, which is a global goal. Those odds, she said, are not good enough. “We will not let you get away with this,” Thunberg said. “Right now is where we draw the line.” (information source AP)

Right: Swedish activist and student Greta Thunberg.

Photo by Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press via AP. Bottom: Environmental activist Greta Thunberg, centre, walks with an entourage after passing a security checkpoint while appearing at the United Nations this September in New York. Photo by Mark Lennihan/AP.

CLIMATE CHANGE

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CLIMATE CHANGE

CLIMATE CHANGE

THE MALTESE SCENARIO

Climate change is today widely recognised as global phenomenon affecting everyone everywhere in one way or another. Despite its global dimension, local impacts may be manifested in different ways including extreme weather patterns, variations in precipitation and its intensity, as well as the extent of sea level rise, all of which may, in some instances, threaten local existence. According to Malta’s Ministry for the Environment, Sustainable Development and Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly highlighted the precarious state of global warming and is now envisaging a worldwide increase in temperature levels of 2ºC. This is untenable since it is likely to cause even more dramatic climatic events that disproportionately affect the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly small islands and coastal regions.

Climate Change is a global issue that can only be tackled through a collective and unilateral effort.This was re-affirmed at the Climate Summit held in New York this September under the auspices of the United Nations during which emphasis was made on the urgency of concrete actions on climate. Building on the momentum of the Paris Agreement signed by 190 countries in 2015, the Climate Summit saw world leaders in politics and from the private sectors raising ambition levels towards climate action.

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hat is Malta's role? On a per capita basis, Malta is one of the lowest emitting countries in the world. However this does not exempt it from manifesting intra and inter generational solidarity with the global community. Malta has already undertaken significant work towards reducing its emissions. Our small size, lack of economies of scale and insularity are but a few of the limiting conditions that underscore our ability to cut emissions in the same way that other countries afford. Notwithstanding, Malta has been undertaking hard work to better its current performance, and initiatives include: The significant advances made within the energy sector through significant investment in our energy infrastructure not least the electricity interconnector between Malta and Sicily and the transition of power generation from heavy fuel oil to gas. This alone resulted in a drop in emissions of about 21%.

The introduction of a robust legal framework to minimize waste and the implementation of other policy measures such as the capping and extrac50

tion of gases from managed landfills and the construction of solid waste and wastewater treatment plants. More investment in solid waste infrastructure is envisaged as we embark upon the challenge of transitioning towards a more circular economy.

The modernization of agricultural holdings and the pursuit of processes which can transform animal manure into a sustainable resource.

Increasing the area of our limited sinks through afforestation projects that increase the extent of our woodland.

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urther emissions reduction is expected of us but admittedly this is not as straightforward as it may seem. Our economy is not structured around energy-intensive sectors but rather generates significant gross value added from comparatively less-polluting activities in the services sector. This reduces the opportunities available to reduce emissions, even more so since Malta has long abandoned the use of coal and heavy fuel oil in energy generation in favour of the much less polluting LNG. In this context, the main residual emitters are related to transport, buildings and fluorinated gases which are a measure of the intensity of the heating and cooling systems we rely upon. In both cases we face challenges that are very specific to our geographic and climatic conditions. By way of example, in a small island like Malta, the opportunities for modal shifts to less-polluting transportation systems are limited with diseconomies of scale putting tough challenges in the way of such shifts. The same applies in the case of possible alternative technologies to heating and cooling. â–ś

CLIMATE CHANGE

Malta has been undertaking hard work to better its current performance towards reducing its emissions. One of the initiatives includes increasing the area of Malta's limited sinks through afforestation projects that increase the extent of woodland.

W

hat else can we do? Ultimately, it all boils down to the sustainability of our lifestyles. If we want to achieve climate neutrality we need to make substantive changes, even at personal level. This entails a behavioural shift by reducing our use of road transport towards more sustainable modes of transportation, improving the efficiency of our heating and cooling mechanisms and upscaling our efforts to separate waste and recycle more.

This also means that we need to adopt a new approach to our built environment which needs to be designed in a manner which makes it responsive to the prevailing climate realities. Passive design concepts and an increased shift from grey to green and blue infrastructure are a must if we are to make a significant improvement in emission levels that are attributed to the nature of our built environment.

There are societal and economical challenges that need to be overcome if we realistically want to achieve climate ambitions. After all, sustainable development revolves around maximising economic, social and environmental goals. Skewing one of these pillars of sustainable development in favour of any other two is in itself mitigating against sustainability itself!

Our contribution to the UN Climate Summit of

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September evolved around the notion of a need for a paradigm shift, not only in the operations of businesses to reduce their ecological footprints but also from the consumers and society at large. Malta was clear in its position that the government is committed to continue leading by example on all fronts.

Education and public awareness are of course key in this transition. We believe that by engaging with the public and local communities more and more people will start to understand the effect of their present-day actions on their own selves and on that of future generations which may in turn accelerate and instigate the desired behavioural changes. We are already evidencing this transition - but we need to step up faster.

The Maltese government has undertaken various initiatives to sensitise the public towards more sustainable consumption patterns through specific campaigns on effective waste separation management and reduction of single-use plastics consumption for examples. By means of these and other initiatives that are in the pipeline, Government will continue to make it as cost-effective as possible for consumers to make consumption choices that conserve natural resources in everyday life.

SAVING OUR

I pledge to never take a plastic bottle when going to the beach or a natural park/area – only carry a re-usable one

3 4 5

to say no to plastic cups and plastic straws when consuming beverages at entertainment places

to say no to plastic bags in supermarkets and take away establishments

1 2

to separate at source and appropriately recycle plastic items consumed To choose reusable or biodegradable cutlery and plates over plastic

9 10

to always dispose properly of my cigarette butts – no litter

to pick up and throw in bins littered items

to opt for no packaging when possible when shopping to dispose of chemicals and unused medicines properly – NOT IN THE DRAINAGESYSTEM to avoid cosmetics that contain microbeads

6 7 8

COMFORT FOOD

GNOCCHI AND END OF SUMMER FLAVOURS Gnocchi serves 3-4

For the gnocchi it is helpful if you can find a white fleshed potato with a high starch content, and surprisingly, the older the potato the better. Less moisture in the potato gives a better texture to the gnocchi, another reason why we opted to bake our potatoes rather than boil them.

500g potato 40g all-purpose flour and extra for dusting 1 egg yolk salt as needed

There’s nothing quite like handmade gnocchi and these light delicate pillows of potato work perfectly with a number of sauces.

We’ve chosen comforting, familiar flavours for these recipes: tomato sauce which utilizes end of season tomatoes perfectly and a complementary pesto which gives a great excuse to prune back your basil bush. These two sauces can be enjoyed separately or together, drizzling some of the pesto over a plate of gnocchi in tomato sauce is a match made in heaven, says Mediterranean Culinary Academy's Stephen La Rosa.

Photography by Robert Pace.

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1. Preheat oven to 200C. Clean the potatoes well and place on a rack in the centre of the oven. Allow to bake for 1 hour or until completely tender.

2. Once baked, cut in half immediately and scoop out the flesh. It is much easier to work with the flesh of the potato while it is warm.

3. Place the flesh of the potato into a potato ricer or a sieve and press through. Weigh the flesh of the potato, from 500g of raw potato you should yield roughly 250g of cooked flesh.

4. Spread the potato out onto a floured work surface and allow to cool slightly for a few minutes.

5. Break up the egg yolk with a fork and drizzle over the potato. Cut into the potato using a pastry card and using a chopping motion, lightly work the egg into the potato.

6. Sprinkle liberally with flour and repeat the chopping motion. Gently fold the flour into the potato by scraping up from one end of the dough and folding it over onto itself.

7. Repeat this process from all sides of the dough until the flour is completely absorbed. Allow the dough to rest for a few minutes before working with it.

8. Separate a small piece of dough with a pastry cutter and using the palms of your hands roll the dough out into a long strand of roughly 1.5cm thickness. Cut at 1-2 cm intervals using a floured pastry card to create the shape of the gnocchi.

9. For visual interest, as well as for the gnocchi to be able to hold more sauce, create a small dimple in the dumpling using your thumb to press down into each gnocco. Alternatively, roll the gnocchi along the twines of a floured fork to create a ridged effect as well as a small dimple on the underside.

10. Lay the gnocchi on a floured piece of parchment paper on a baking tray.

11. Bring a pot of well salted water to the boil.

Once at a rolling boil add the gnocchi and slowly turn the pot back and forth so that they do not stick to one another.

12. When the gnocchi float strain them and immediately add them to a sauté pan filled with the tomato sauce (or any sauce of your choice). Cook for a minute to coat with the sauce and finish with liberal amounts of Parmigiano Reggiano. At this stage you can serve or place into a hot oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese.

COMFORT FOOD

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COMFORT FOOD

Tomato Sauce

Potato Skin Crisp

8 tomatoes 2 garlic cloves 1 chilli pepper 1 bay leaf 1tbsp tomato paste extra virgin olive oil

These make a wonderful snack all by themselves or with a dip. Broken up into smaller shards they make a wonderful textural garnish to complete the gnocchi dish.

1. Place a sautĂŠ pan on a low heat. Add a generous amount of olive oil, a halved chilli, 2 cloves of sliced garlic and a bay leaf. Leave this on a low heat for around 5 minutes to infuse the oil.

2. Add a tablespoon of tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes.

3. Grate the tomatoes into a bowl using the largest setting on your box grater, leaving behind and discarding the skins.

4. Add the tomato pulp to the pan and cook over medium heat for about 1 hour or until the tomato juice has reduced by half and you have a nice consistency.

5. Adjust seasoning to taste with salt and black pepper.

Pesto 100g Parmesan 1 bunch basil 100g pine nuts 1 garlic clove, minced olive oil as needed salt and pepper as needed 1. Add minced garlic to a mortar and pestle or the bowl of a food processor with a pinch of salt. Crush to form a paste.

2. Add the Parmesan and pine nuts and crush lightly.

3. Add the basil leaves and enough olive oil to loosen the mixture to your taste. Continue working the pesto until it is reaches your desired consistency. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

potato skins (left over from the gnocchi recipe) olive oil salt 1. Preheat oven to 160C. 2. Coat the potato skins with olive oil and season liberally with salt. Place onto a baking tray and allow the skins to cook for roughly 20 minutes until crisp.

Roast cherry tomatoes serves 2

These roasted cherry tomatoes are bursting with flavour, releasing their juices in the roasting process. They can be served hot or at room temperature.

12 cherry tomatoes olive oil salt 1 sprig of basil 2 garlic cloves 1. Preheat oven to 190C. 2. Place the cherry tomatoes in a roasting tray. Drizzle with olive oil and a pinch of salt. Crush the garlic with the palm of your hand and place the basil and crushed cloves under the tomatoes.

3. Roast for twenty minutes until juicy and slightly shrivelled.

The Mediterranean Culinary Academy will be hosting an upcoming workshop which will include these recipes, for more information visit www.mcamalta.com or email contact@mcamalta.com 56

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SPOTLIGHT

CONCERT

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Not Just The Wall

A tribute to the music of Pink Floyd with an emphasis on The Wall Selection featuring The Gozo Youth Orchestra, Cash & Band and special guests, directed by Joseph Grech at the Aurora Opera House, Gozo on Saturday 2nd November.

Photography by Matt Hush.

nce again Cash & Band will be the headline rock band.

They will be supported by several special guest artists including Keith Anthony, Cheryl Balzan, Dorothy Bezzina, Chris Grech, Kevin McGowan and Neville Refalo. Having honed their skills over many years, performing at numerous musical events and competitions, each artist will bring their own distinctive style to the event. These wellseasoned live event performers always give of their best on the night and enjoy tremendous rapport with their audiences.

Not Just The Wall, Aurora Opera House, Gozo. 2nd November, 2019.

Book your tickets now at www.teatruaurora.com or contact the ticket helpline on 7904 5779.

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PROMOTION

GOING GAGA FOR GALILEO FIGARO

As the mega-hit musical phenomenon We Will Rock You comes to Malta for the first time, London performer Jordan Carr has confirmed his role as the central character Galileo Figaro. You can watch this award-winning musical in Malta this month.

Jordan Carr, originally from Northwest England, recently played the lead role in Boogie Nights in London.

For this autumn’s Maltese debut of We Will Rock You, Jordan will play the central character, Galileo Figaro.

hat entices a West End star to Malta?

The sun, the sea? Or an opportunity to perform back-to-back Queen classics?

Hot on the heels of its sell-out successes My Fair Lady and Mamma Mia!, FM Theatre Productions is staging We Will Rock You, one of the most popular musicals from London’s West End, for the first time in Malta.

Stepping into the limelight for this energetic production is Jordan Carr. Originally from Northwest England, Jordan recently played the lead role in Boogie Nights in London, and has travelled the world with The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Beauty and the Beast.

Now, Malta welcomes Jordan as Galileo Figaro, We Will Rock You’s central character, a dreamer reminiscent of Queen’s famous frontman. “I’m thrilled to be playing Galileo! I’m a huge fan of Queen – how can you not be? Freddie Mercury is an idol and allround showman, so I can’t wait to rock out in Malta”, explains Jordan.

The musical by Queen and Ben Elton is based around the legendary British rock band’s greatest hits.

The musical is set in the distant future in the year 2300 where planet Earth is now known as Planet Mall, 60

and every inhabitant must dress, think and act the same, going about in a brain-dead gaga haze. In a world where musical instruments are strictly forbidden, and rock music is unknown, a small group of Bohemians rebel against the system and struggle to restore the free exchange of thought, fashion and, most of all, music.

“To be the first company in Malta to acquire the rights to the show is a fantastic accomplishment,” says producer Edward Mercieca. “We Will Rock You always brings the house down, and we’ve got a stellar cast raring to perform Queen’s timeless and iconic songs.”

Directed by Chris Gatt, the Maltese debut of We Will Rock You is set to be a theatrical highlight this autumn.

“If you love Queen, you’ll be left with no choice but to clap and sing along,” promises Jordan.“I want the audience to leave ready to come back and rock with us again!”

We Will Rock You is being staged at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta, on 18th October at 8pm and 19th and 20th October at 2.30pm and 8pm. Visit www.fmtheatre.com for more information, and www.mcc.com.mt for tickets.

FM THEATRE PRODUCTIONS PROUDLY PRESENTS

18, 19, 20 OCTOBER 2019 AT THE MEDITERRANEAN CONFERENCE CENTRE TICKETS FROM WWW.MCC.COM.MT SPONSORED BY

WE WILL ROCK YOU IS PRESENTED THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH THEATRICAL RIGHTS WORLDWIDE, 122-124 REGENT STREET, LONDON, W1B 5SA.

DISCOVERY

KITCHEN

CIMABUE

Christ Mocked, 24cm x 20cm. A rare 13th century painting by Italian master Cimabue has been discovered quite by chance hanging in a kitchen in northern France, and is expected to fetch millions at auction.

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If you have ever visited Assisi and it’s popular Basilica of San Francesco you would have seen work by Cimabue, who features in both the upper and lower Basilicas there.

Working until his death in 1302, Cimabue is regarded as one of the first Italian painters to break from the rigidity of the Byzantine style and considered to be a forefather of the Italian Renaissance. Now, several centuries later, a painting by Cimabue has surfaced hanging on a wall in a French kitchen and is expected to fetch 4 to 6 million euro at auction. masterpiece attributed to 13th century Italian artist Cimabue has been discovered in a French woman’s kitchen, and is expected to sell for 4 to 6 million euro at an upcoming auction at the Acteon Auction House north of Paris on 27th October. Titled “Christ Mocked,” the small wood painting depicts Christ surrounded by a crowd.

According to Stephane Pinta, an art specialist with Turquin Gallery (the gallery entrusted to carry out research on the work) in Paris, “experts think that the painting is part of a larger diptych Cimabue painted around 1280”.

Until recently, the painting hung on a wall between the kitchen and the dining room of a home in Compiègne, in North France.

The owner considered it to be an icon of little importance until an auctioneer spotted the painting while going through her house and suggested bringing it to art experts. Alexis Ashot, an independent art consultant for British auction house Christie’s, said “it’s wonderful to be reminded that there are paintings of such major importance that are still out there and still to be discovered.” (information source AP)

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