Ta' Qali's ten-year outdoor installation, opposite the National Park, sadly faces removal
A 13,000 square metre field of lovingly accumulated rubble, sustained through two removal attempts and 100,000 euro in penalties, is finally to be dismantled.
Sad news for admirers of large-scale environmental art. After ten years on continuous display, Ta’ Qali’s celebrated rubble installation is to be removed.
The work occupies a 13,000 square metre field directly opposite the National Park, a placement the artists clearly intended as commentary: managed nature on one side of the road, inert construction waste on the other, the visitor left to choose. Begun around 2016 and added to faithfully ever since, it has grown by the truckload into one of the island’s most committed long-term projects.
A Robert Smithson, by the tonne
Smithson made his name pouring industrial debris across the land and calling it an earthwork. Ta’ Qali’s anonymous collective took the idea further, sustaining the piece through two attempted removals, in 2021 and 2024, and absorbing some 100,000 euro in penalties without once breaking concept. Few artists suffer so for their medium.
Catch it before it goes
The Planning Authority has now begun dismantling the installation, a decade in the making, gone in a fortnight. Heritage, after all, is whatever we permit to accumulate. Visit soon, while there is still something left to cart away.
