Arts Council Malta has announced its return to London Design Biennale 2025 with a national project, titled Urna, that explores the subject of cremation.
“URNA is an innovative project exploring the fascinating and distinctive subject of cremation. This proposal perfectly exemplifies and merges design innovation and creativity. It is bold, stimulating and far-reaching, beyond the idea of simply ‘art’” the council said in a statement.
The project aims to challenge the status quo on the subject of burial, presenting it in a poetic, intellectually stimulating and environmentally engaging way. “It should serve as the starting point for much discussion.”
Anticipating the introduction of cremation in the Maltese islands and the cultural significance that comes with it, Urna seeks to introduce a ritual for handling human remains that challenges traditional practices.
“The project redefines the columbarium, ossuary, and wake to re-establish death as a significant ceremony, unburdened by unnecessary signifiers,” the Council says.
“The collaboration of architects, designers, curators, and art directors has devised a geometrical construction using large, nondescript boulders that accumulate over time and form a language of their own. These spherical modules, universal in shape, incorporate cremated remains, embodying the individual’s connection to a broader cosmic reality and evolving through tactile interventions that invite various cultural interpretations.”
The multi-national team behind URNA is composed of curator and architect Andrew Borg Wirth, architect and designer Anthony Bonnici, Cypriot designer Tanil Özer Raif, art director Matthew Attard Navarro, French photographer Anne Immelé, Maltese filmmaker Stephanie Sant and architect Thomas Mifsud.
Urna follows Malta’s 2023 project for the same biennale, titled Urban Fabric, which saw a large-scale ‘village-square’ installation set up in the square of Somerset House in London that combined traditional city planning with the Phoenician-Maltese tradition of fabric production.
Main image: Malta’s installation at the 2023 London Design Biennale / Photo by Iona Wolff
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