‘Collective Imagination – Unfolding the Possibilities of Shared Unconsciousness’ is a Valletta 2018 endorsed visual arts exhibition of sculptural installations utilising light, sound, and video by visual artists Chellcy Mifsud-Reitsma (Malta/USA) and Merja Briñón (Finland). The exhibition will be presented at Spazju Kreattiv (Spaces C1 – C4, Upper Galleries) in Valletta between the 6-30 September 2018. The exhibition will form part of the Spazju Kreattiv program in Malta and will be exported to Finland and Spain after.

There will be one solo work by each artist, which was the inspiration for the collaboration in the first place; and two collaborative works, in which the artists equally contribute to the creation of the installations. Some of the works will also be interactive with the audience. Under the direction of the artists, Tom Borg will be composing a soundscape for one of the collaborative artworks based in sonic geometry. Lisa Gwen will be the curator of the exhibition and will put the artistic concept and exhibition into a Maltese context and define its relevance and contribution to the larger Maltese art scene.

Collective Imagination researches the possibility to create and use collective imagination as a contemporary tool to think and to be in a rapidly changing society in turbulent times experienced in a globalised world. The aim of Collective Imagination is to unfold the possibilities of shared unconsciousness and to resist efficiency, materialism and other capitalist and neoliberal values of postcolonial western world based on Christian tradition.

The concept of collective imagination can be explained as an unseen network, a universal phenomenon, or universal consciousness that we all tap into to pull ideas and inspiration from, as well as contribute to by simply generating ideas in the artists’ minds connected to collective consciousness, which means for example, two creatives from completely different countries who have never met may have the same or similar idea near the same time and develop an artwork or invention that is very similar, but still individual, without ever knowing one another or that another person was doing something very similar. They may think that their idea is totally original and never know that it was a shared idea with a stranger on the other side of the world.  This is a very common phenomenon that occurs regularly, throughout time and has been well documented. The collective imagination is one step further from collective consciousness – in collective imagination participants can create something new on an unconscious level. This collective imagination can also be interpreted as a shared legacy, as universal concepts shared between all cultures, religions, science, and metaphysics; something that is intangible universal heritage that we all create together.