MALTA BIENNALE 2026
AWARDS FOR BEST ARTWORK AND BEST PAVILION ANNOUNCED
The recipients of The Maltese Falcon – the Malta Biennale 2026 award – were announced last night during an awards ceremony held at the Oratory, St John’s Co-Cathedral, against the dramatic backdrop of Caravaggio’s iconic
Beheading of St John.
The recipients of the Best Artwork Award are Concetta Modica, with Fragments of the sky of Malta: The journey of a tomato sepal to become a star, and Therese Debono, with Blank. Concetta Modica’s (IT) work focuses on the present and its paradoxes, especially the idea of a contemporary epic, conceived through remnants and relationships with matter and sculpture-related media. c(MT) is a photographer whose practice develops through long-term engagement with specific places. Her work focuses on sites that have been altered, erased, or rebuilt, and are now becoming ordinary while still holding layers of lived experience and, at times,
trauma.
The recipient of the Best Pavilion Award is Redefining. Polish Ghanaian Textile Narratives, curated by Natalia Bradbury and featuring the work of Eliza Proszczuk, Ernestina Mansa Doku and Marta Nadolle. This pavilion presents a monumental textile installation created through collaboration between Polish and Ghanaian artists. Rooted in the Biennale’s theme, the work revisits a little‐known history of solidarity between Poland and Ghana, transforming it into a hopeful vision for future cooperation. Guided by the philosophy of Ubuntu – “I am because we are” – the installation celebrates interdependence, empathy, and shared humanity.
