The Malta Entertainment Industry and Arts Association (MEIA) is deeply concerned by remarks made by the Minister for Arts, Culture and National Heritage, Malcolm Paul Agius Galea, at the Festival of Ideas, as reported today by Times of Malta.
The Minister described his first four months in office as “traumatic”, and said that finding creativity to be “the order of the day” was one of his main traumas. He also said that, to him, being creative means being presumptuous and dangerous. He questioned why productions expected to do well should need public funding when ticket sales should be enough, and he argued that creativity must keep within set norms of right and wrong, warning that artists with misguided ideas could influence the minds of their audiences.
Hostility towards the sector
This is the second time in just over two months that MEIA has had to respond publicly to the Minister. In September, MEIA responded to his comments on the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, stating that the Minister responsible for culture should defend freedom of expression without qualification. That position stands.
Throughout his time in this role, MEIA has faced a lack of communication and a lack of respect from the Minister towards the association and the professionals it represents. MEIA has also received a number of concerns from artists about other speeches by the Minister, in particular one in which he reportedly said that artists remind him of his time working at Mount Carmel Hospital.
A sector that is not understood
The Minister’s latest remarks make it clear that he does not understand the sector he is responsible for, or the people who work in it. Creativity is not a danger to be contained or a trauma to be endured. It is the work itself, built on years of training and professional practice, and it should not be made to conform to a Minister’s personal sense of right and wrong.
More fundamentally, the Minister’s words show that he does not understand what art and culture are, or why they matter. Art is how a society reflects on itself, questions itself and imagines what it could be. Culture shapes how Malta sees itself and how it is seen abroad, and it is built every day by professionals whose work deserves to be valued, not treated as a nuisance to be managed.
The same misunderstanding runs through his comments on funding. He questioned whether successful productions need public funding when ticket sales should be enough. Public funding invests in the research, rehearsal and preparation that happen long before any ticket is sold. The inconsistency is clear: the Government does not treat commercial success as a reason to withhold support in other sectors. In fact, it offers a cash rebate of up to 40% to film productions, including major Hollywood productions. Local artists should not be held to a different standard.
Creative work should not be dismissed as presumptuous, and support for artists is not a matter of trying to “please the artist”.
Without a basic foundation of understanding, communication and respect between the Minister and the sector, no progress is possible on the issues that matter: fair pay, affordable creative spaces and sustainable funding.
Taken together, these remarks and the Minister’s conduct towards MEIA and the wider sector suggest that he does not see the value of culture, or of the people who make it. MEIA therefore questions whether the Minister is fit for the role. Artists deserve respect and encouragement, not to be belittled.
Artists in Malta are not asking to be treated as special. They are asking to be respected, to be paid for their work, to have somewhere to make it, and to be free to say what they want with it. That is what MEIA expects the Minister responsible for culture to stand up for.
MEIA calls on the Minister to:
- Recognise that artists and their representative bodies have every right to advocate for the conditions they need, and engage with them as the professionals they are.
- Reaffirm, without qualification, the freedom of artistic expression, and guarantee that public arts funding is decided at arm’s length and on published criteria.
- Meet the sector’s representative bodies in the coming weeks, and set up a regular, structured channel of dialogue with the sector.
MEIA remains ready to work with the Ministry on these priorities. The sector does not need flattery from its Minister. It needs to be taken seriously.