Malta-Arch is organising a Gozo protest performance: Protect this Land – which advocates for the protection of the Santa Verna Temple archaeological landscape, including the area surrounding the ancient Ta’ Lablab caves and a Neolithic children’s burial pit in Xaghra, Gozo.
The performance will combine dance, poetry, song, and archaeological discussion to draw attention to the destruction threatening the area, also an ecologically rich habitat and home to threatened species.
Malta-Arch explained that “despite the #SaveSantaVerna protest, a Parliamentary petition signed by over 1,400 people, and international media coverage, the government has failed to intervene.”
It added that “the landscape remains at risk from plans to build residential structures, a basement parking garage, and two new roads, one of which encroaches upon the temple’s archaeological buffer zone. Worse, there are reports of further construction on the site near the Neolithic burial pit. There is heavy machinery nearby and a rubble wall has been removed.”
As threats intensify, so do public campaigns, said Malta-Arch.” In addition to the show, it will hand out signs advocating for Santa Verna in front of Valletta’s Archaeology Museum on the 27th of October at 5pm for the Gustizzja ghal Artna protest.
Then, on the 4th of November (time to be determined), the public can object to the Santa Verna developments (PA/05171/23 & PA/03174/23) at two consecutive Planning Authority sittings. (Email MALTAARCH2017@gmail.com [1] for link.) It also urged people to sign the new international petition. [2]
The protest performance is taking place on Saturday, the 1st of November, at 4pm. It will be at the Santa Verna Temple, Xaghra. (Rain date: 2 Nov., 4pm).
The artists for the event included:
Marlene Saliba will read from her bilingual poetry collection Xbihat tal-Antenati / Ancestral Visions, her reflections on Neolithic temples and their contemporary relevance. She believes that art ‘inspired by our megalithic sites can also contribute to awaken or consolidate our affinity with the ancient past and bring into focus the bearing that prehistory may have on our consciousness’. Regarding Santa Verna, she emphasises that it deserves the protection given to the other more well-known temple sites and calls for the preservation of its surrounding landscape. She has also published two other poetry books and academic papers on human-rights education and the teaching of literature.
Shuntaro Yoshida is a dance scholar and practitioner who earned his Ph.D. from Tokyo University of the Arts. He is currently an ERA Fellow under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship, where he leads the project, Environmental Turn of Dance. His recent book Post-Choreography (Routledge, 2024) explores participatory practices in contemporary dance. Yoshida describes the Santa Verna Temple landscape as a portal that connects the inner world with the natural world and believes it should be preserved.
Izabela Klara Biskupska, a Polish-born artist based in Gozo, blends painting, poetry, performance, and puppetry to explore emotion, abstraction, heritage, and myth. She has exhibited multiple times at the Citadel and created the live art performance Emerging Calypso (2023). Her next solo exhibition, Inspirations from the Sea, opens in December 2025 at the Banca Giuratale, Victoria. For this Santa Verna performance she wishes to raise more awareness of the urgent need to protect Malta’s precious archaeological sites.
Ingrid Jahn, originally from Bavaria, has worked for over 20 years in tourism and visited sacred sites all over, ranging from the Pyramids of Giza to Spider Rock in Arizona. In fact, she moved to Malta to live near its temples. She calls their destruction ‘personally painful’, stressing that they belong to all humanity: ‘They should be untouchable; world heritage should be protected forever’.
Dawn A. Saliba is a theatre artist and scholar specialising in the ritual archaeology of Neolithic Malta. She holds a Ph.D. from Binghamton University, MFA from NYU, and MPhil in Archaeology from the University of Malta. Her forthcoming book, Rituals of Death in ?al Saflieni & the Xag?ra Circle will be published in 2027. Now, she is focusing all energy on protecting Santa Verna’s landscape, hoping those in power will finally recognise its irreplaceable nature and take their responsibility as stewards of the nation’s heritage seriously.
Malta-Arch is a collective that advocates for Malta’s natural, cultural, and archaeological heritage.
Photo: Malta-Arch