Since her arrival here in 2017, photographer Daria Troitskaia found a muse in the Maltese islands. From the streets and shoreline to the charm and daily rituals of regular men and women, every aspect of Maltese life piqued her interest, making it an easy place to call home.
Following her recent exhibition, Surface Tension, at The Grist, which explored aerial landscapes and the fragile meeting points between water, ice and land, DesignDispatch caught up with the Russian native who claims that her time in Malta really honed her love for photography.
“Before that, I worked as an art director and studied art, but during my time here photography became my real focus,” says Daria, who now lives in Milan but returns often – “and every time I come back, I feel at home.”
Small scenes everywhere
The everyday is what drew Daria’s attention. She would walk around, observe and capture moments in time – elderly women putting chairs outside after dinner to talk, baskets being lowered from windows in the morning to collect bread, elderly women playing cards at Sliema Pitch with neat hair and gold jewellery, and then later continuing their conversations in the water.
“All of this existed in beautiful, very strong light. In the end, it felt inevitable to take a camera and start photographing.” Expeditions that began in Sliema and Valletta later extended everywhere on the islands, including Gozo and Comino, where she met some of the latter’s last remaining residents.
“From the beginning, I was never interested in making another tourist image. I was looking for something more precise – a detail, a gesture or expression that could remain in the photograph as a kind of punctum, something that quietly pierces the image and makes it memorable,” says Daria.
From capturing fishermen in Marsaxlokk to conversations taking place across balconies in Valletta, these moments struck Daria. “There is something about daily life in Malta that feels very photogenic, but also very ritualistic. Certain gestures, habits and scenes repeat themselves, and that is what interested me most.”
An aerial perspective
During the pandemic, Daria began exploring the islands from the skies with a project on aerial photography. “I found a helicopter, flew for the first time, and immediately loved it.”
“You shoot without doors, so there’s a physical intensity and adrenaline to the process, but more importantly it gives you a completely different perspective on a place that you usually experience from ground level.”
The project soon extended beyond Malta. From Sicily to South Africa and Iceland to the Arctic, Daria would fly and photograph whenever she found an interesting landscape and access to a helicopter, laying the foundation for her latest exhibition.
“What I enjoy most is observing the geometry of the land or sea from a bird’s-eye view. People stop being the main characters and become part of the composition again, just one element among many,” says Daria. “Seen from above, the world becomes less human-centred and more about structure, scale, colour and form.”
Locally, it’s Malta’s coastline that remains her favourite subject to photograph in this way, where shapes and colours fill the frame with a sense of raw energy and curious ambiguity.
Making a home in Malta
Beyond her photography and keen eye for capturing Malta’s character, Daria’s connection with the island grew deeper when she bought a corner house in Sliema that had belonged to a well-known doctor in the town.
“It turned out that many of my Maltese friends had some sort of connection to it. That made me even happier, because it meant that the house was not only beautiful, bright and full of character, but also connected to the place in a deeper way.”
Daria engaged Archi+ studio – led by Partner and Director Anthea Huber and Senior Architect Daphne Bugeja – to restore the house and transform it into a comfortable and contemporary home while preserving its original identity.
A new kitchen, en-suite bathrooms in all the bedrooms and underfloor heating are some of the new comforts that coexist with retained original elements, including old doors, the staircase, garigor, louvered windows and the flooring in one of the rooms. “It was important that the house should still feel like itself.”
Despite a demanding schedule for international work – including a long-term project with cabaret club Crazy Horse Paris and an ongoing series on ballet and backstage moments, both shot on film – Daria will be back in Malta this month to continue her aerial and documentary work.
“I have a number of projects here I want to pursue, such as photographing the Casino Maltese, where I am a member, continuing festa photography on film and also horse racing,” says Daria. “Malta may be a small country, but the amount of material it offers is incredible. The real task is to shape it into a book or an exhibition. For me, having a story behind the photographs is essential – beauty by itself is not enough.”
Photography: Daria Troitskaia
