{"id":616835,"date":"2026-09-07T03:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T03:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616835\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T03:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T03:00:17","slug":"35-artists-come-together-to-explore-the-secret-language-of-flowers-at-new-ta-qali-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616835\/","title":{"rendered":"35 Artists Come Together To Explore The Secret Language Of Flowers At New Ta\u2019 Qali Exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new contemporary art exhibition bringing together 35 artists is set to open at the MANI Centre in Ta\u2019 Qali next week, exploring the centuries-old tradition of using flowers to communicate everything from love and desire to grief and secrecy.<\/p>\n

The Language of Petals: A Floriographical Memoir will open on Monday 7th September at the MANI Centre within the Ta\u2019 Qali Artisan Village, running until 11th October.<\/p>\n

Curated by Melanie Erixon and coordinated by JP Barthet, the collective exhibition also marks the beginning of a new artistic collaboration with MANI Centre, which will see a programme of contemporary exhibitions and cultural initiatives hosted at the venue throughout the year.<\/p>\n

And its first exhibition is going all the way back to the Victorian \u201clanguage of flowers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Known as floriography, different flowers were historically assigned specific meanings, allowing people to communicate emotions and messages through carefully selected blooms.<\/p>\n

A flower could symbolise love, mourning, devotion, remembrance or desire, giving people a way of expressing feelings they might otherwise have struggled to put into words.<\/p>\n

The Language of Petals takes that idea and gives it a contemporary twist.<\/p>\n

Each of the 35 participating artists was invited to select flowers and explore their traditional symbolism through their own practice.<\/p>\n

Rather than simply depicting beautiful blooms, the resulting works use flowers to explore themes including identity, intimacy, resilience, obsession, transformation, loss and memory.<\/p>\n

The exhibition describes itself as a collective \u201cmemoir\u201d, with every artwork becoming a fragment of a larger emotional story told through petals.<\/p>\n

And there are some very familiar names from Malta\u2019s art scene involved.<\/p>\n

The line-up includes Alex Attard, Anna Galea, Antoine Farrugia, Darren Tanti, Elisa von Brockdorff, James Dimech, Julian \u2018Julinu\u2019 Mallia, Kenneth Zammit Tabona, Nico Conti, Patrick Dalli, Roderick Camilleri, SJ Fuerst and Victor Agius, alongside more than 20 other artists.<\/p>\n

Visitors will also be able to discover a separate photographic exhibition dedicated to the work of Maltese designer and paper artist James Dimech.<\/p>\n

Dimech transforms paper through folding, construction, manipulation and traditional textile techniques to create intricate three-dimensional and wearable pieces sitting somewhere between art, sculpture and fashion.<\/p>\n

His work has travelled internationally, appearing everywhere from Italy and France to Lithuania, Egypt and Australia, including appearances at the Lucca Biennale Cartasia, Milan Fashion Week and Paper on Skin in Tasmania.<\/p>\n

The exhibition at MANI brings together photographs of pieces from different stages of his practice, showcasing the surprisingly diverse forms that can emerge from a material normally associated with fragility.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, paper is not fragile, it is honest,\u201d Dimech said. \u201cIt becomes whatever you allow it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Language of Petals: A Floriographical Memoir opens at 7pm on Monday 7th September at MANI Centre, Ta\u2019 Qali Artisan Village, and runs until 11th October.<\/p>\n

Share with someone who would love this!<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: Popular \u0120u\u017ceppi Briffa Art Exhibition In Gozo Extended Following \u2018Unprecedented Demand\u2019<\/a>\"\"Gabriel Falzon is a social media executive at Lovin Malta, with a keen interest in digital media, local businesses, and the natural world. Outside of work, you\u2019ll often find him baking up a storm, diving into video games, or exploring the endless corners of YouTube.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new contemporary art exhibition bringing together 35 artists is set to open at the MANI Centre in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-616835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}