Religious art in Gozo
The churches in Gozo, Malta were my favorite part of my trip. If you have never gotten the chance to be inside of a cathedral, imagine a gigantic building of spectacular architecture. This space inside of the cathedral has a ceiling with every inch of it painted by a very talented artist, as well as religious statues, structures, paintings, etc filling the rest of the space. Just by walking in it is obvious that this space is of importance to the people who come to the cathedrals every day to show their love to God. Where I live in Canada, religion is not a common subject to individuals lives. Most of my friends and family are not very religious, or those people whom I know who are religious do not speak about their religion very often. I asked a few of my religious friends why they do not speak about their religion more often with our friend group, and most of their answers comprised of them not believing that people cared enough to hear about it, or that they would have been slightly embarrassed since so many of our friends were not religious. The atmosphere in Gozo was very different than this. Some people in Gozo go to church every day to show their dedication to God. I was lucky enough to be able to witness religious events during my time in Gozo and it is hard to put into words how strongly the individuals felt towards practicing Catholicism. The most I can say is that I found their passion towards religion very inspiring, and by the end of my trip I was very excited to have chosen the research topic that I had.
I chose my research topic to be religious art. When I first arrived in Gozo I immediately knew that I wanted my topic to be about religion. After driving and walking around a few of the towns I decided to make it about religious art. This is because everywhere you go in Gozo, there is religious art. It didn’t take me long to discover the passion that Gozitans have towards religion, but I soon realized that art was the best way that these people could demonstrate this passion. There are a total of of 359 churches in all of Malta, including Gozo. The churches themselves are the biggest work of art you will see in Gozo. Other than that you will see religious art everywhere you go, since many people even have religious art in front of their homes. During my research, the different types of religious art that I was able to witness included architecture, statues, pottery, paintings, mosaics, and more.
How important is the connection between art and religion here in Gozo? This was the question that I asked many people that I interviewed since this was the argument I was trying to make for my research topic. Automatically, everyone I interviewed always said that the connection is very important. I was lucky enough to get some amazing interviews from people for my research, and I felt privileged for them to share their passion with me.
My research
One of the interviews I did was with Henry, who had his art displayed in the Il-Hagar museum in Victoria. Henry mostly paints pictures of chapels, which is why I thought he would make a great subject to interview. Our interview actually lasted twenty minutes, just talking about his art and it’s connection to religion. In my opinion, his views about religion and art were so original and inspiring. He thought of religion in more of a scientific way than most other people I have met. His opinion gave me a different perspective from what I have learned about Catholicism here so far. During the interview I asked him if art influenced religious views. He answered, “possibly.” He believes that art was inspired by religious subjects, and that this type of art can kick start an emotion in you. Ultimately it depends on an individual person and the different ways that they can be influenced. Henry also mentions that he believes that art was first inspired by religious figures, which is why the connection between art and religion is so important. I thought this was an amazing interview, and I really enjoyed the time we spent together. I learned a lot about how important it is for him to be able to create art and the journey it took to be able to make the art he does. The best way to explain Henry’s point of view is to simply just watch the interview and see his passion for yourself.
I met another artist named Roberto, who is designing a mosaic in front of the Ta Pinu Shrine, along with 26 other artists who come from 11 different countries. This diverse group seems to bring about an amazing collaboration of work, because in my opinion the art they creating was amazing. The mosaic is comprised of religious figures. I felt very fortunate to be able to interview Roberto since the answers he gave in the interview were very personal. It was obvious that religion was very important to him. Roberto told me that the most natural expression of faith is art. He believes that art has to do with life, so it can be expressed through the lives of religious peoples. This interview seems so different from the interview I had with Henry in terms of religious views. However, although their religious views differed in many ways, they are both able to create amazing art.
Henry and Roberto were the only two artists that I interviewed while doing my research, and I noticed that their opinions of the connection between art and religion were very different. Henry believes that when you get older that it is normal to distance oneself from religion a little bit, and then when he is painting that it helps him to keep in mind religion since he finds the subject inspires his art. While Roberto believes that art and religion are both life experiences and living things, which work together to create his art. So it seems as though Henry has the greatest inspiration with his religion mostly when he is painting, and Roberto lives everyday thinking about religion and that gives him ideas and inspiration for what project he would like to create next.
While at the Ta Pinu shrine I was also able to meet with the priest. I was very excited because I have been trying very hard during this trip to get an interview from someone who showed great dedication to the church, since they might know more about how the art in the church has changed throughout the years. The priest told me all about the individuals who contributed to the work and design of the church, and showed me a book on how the church has changed throughout this time. I was able to learn a lot during this interview and I really appreciated the time he spent to help me, even though it was short due to mass starting soon. The priest also introduced me to Roberto, so I was extremely happy to have gotten two such amazing interviews that day. Although he taught me a lot about the history of the church, I was not able to get much of an answer from him about his opinion the importance of religious art. Of course he said that it was very important, but he did not have much time to expand on the answer.
During my time at the crafts village in St. Lawrence, I met a lady who created pottery. She showed me different types of pottery that she makes for the feasts here in Gozo. The feasts are important dates for each canonized saint, so the pottery she makes is for religious holidays. She seemed rather busy so I wasn’t able to talk to her for very long, but it was a cool learning experience for me to see a type of religious art that I haven’t yet been exposed to. I was sad that I was not able to witness a feast, since I would have gotten to notice for myself how important this type of art is to the religious holidays, and that would have helped my research a lot.
I also met a really nice lady in Victoria, who’s name is Michealina. She helped me so much in an attempt to teach me more about Catholicism. She showed me jewellery in which you use to pray, and she even gave me a book which explains what prayers to say and how to say them. Michealina actually has a whole shop that contains religious figures in the form of mini statues or paintings, etc. Her sons even make the statues that she sells. She told me that religion is very important to her whole family, and I very much believe her since she has an entire store that contains religious figures. I found Michealina very inspiring, since she shared personal stories with me to explain how prayer has helped her. I like to call these stories “the art of the mind” in regards to my study of religious art, because I do think individual peoples minds are a certain type of art. One of the stories was about one of her sons when he was younger. Apparently he broke his leg and had to go to the hospital. One day, Michealina went to church and prayed for him. When she went to visit her son the next day, he told his mom that at the exact time that she had been praying for him, he started to feel much better. When they looked at x-rays that same day, the bone in his leg had actually moves 2 inches closer together. Michealina was my very first interview here in Gozo, and I really appreciated the time that she spent with me. Although we had a little trouble communicating due to her limited knowledge of English, she made it clear that religion means a lot to her and her family, and that she now dedicates her job to selling religious art because it makes her happy.
During my time here there was a band march for St. Georges Day. It was held in front of St. Georges Church in Victoria. This is another example of the art of the mind, because of the enthusiasm that I witnessed this day. For hours, people were dancing and singing along with the band, and even throwing confetti around, while six men carried around a gigantic statue of Jesus. This shows major dedication to religion in my opinion. The statue is an example of religious art, as was the confetti, the trolley they moved around, and so were the people. The dedication that the individuals at the band march showed to religion was incredible, and this is another example of the art of the mind, which I explained earlier in the article. This was the best participant observation that I was able to do during my time researching in Gozo. The energy in St. Georges square this day was amazing and I was so happy that I had gotten the chance to be there to witness this.
Methods
I have only completed one year of my bachelors degree so far in university, so before this trip I had very limited knowledge of how to do ethnographic fieldwork. I learned how to do all of my research, edit my photos and videos, and everything else from my professor Bryce Peake. I knew a few of the methods about how to go about doing ethnographic fieldwork beforehand, such as participant observation and interviews, but I was very nervous and unsure on how to get started.
I constructed my argument for my research by my professor asking me the question in class. He asked us what we wanted our research argument to be, and gave us two minutes to think about. I kind of panicked when he asked the question because I couldn’t think of anything at first. I hadn’t even thought about this before he asked us on about the second or third day of class. At some point in the two minutes I came up with the importance between art and religion and I couldn’t come up with a better answer later on in the day, so that is what I stuck with.
I mostly based my research on interviews because I discovered that they were turning out surprisingly well. Before this trip I had never been on the other side of the interview, as in the person asking the questions. I had a slightly difficult time coming up with questions to ask since I didn’t want to embarrass myself. I have a rather limited knowledge about religion, and I was wanting to speak with individuals who had a good understanding about Catholicism so I was worried about asking them silly questions. I was very surprised on how well the interviews went each time I had one. I was really excited with the amazing answers that the subjects gave me since they expressed their passion and told me personal stories to help me with my research. I was mostly surprised that they were so willing to give such personal answers and stories to me, a complete stranger who had a foreign accent. I also tried to do some participant observation, but that did not seem to work for me quite as well as the interviews did. Besides the band march, the best participant observation that I was able to do was watching people walk to church for mass, which was not very interesting since most people spoke Maltese so I couldn’t listen in on their conversations.
What didn’t work
Before leaving for my trip, I decided not to bring my computer with me. I was told in an email that it was not totally necessary to bring it, and I had a really long flight ahead of me since I was going from Alberta, Canada to Malta. I also had really long delays in between my flights that were eight to ten hours long. So I decided that taking my big laptop with me was too much of a hassle. However, not bringing my laptop was the worst idea ever. I underestimated how much editing of pictures, videos, sound recordings, etc that we were going to be doing on the trip. Basically, I couldn’t do any decent editing on my phone so I had to wait until I got back home to be able to do my editing. To say the least I would have had a lot easier time trying to edit these pictures if my professor could have been here to help me, which if I would have brought my computer with me to Malta, I could have had the help I needed. At some point I have figured out how to edit everything I needed to, but it took a very, very long time. Needless to say, if you are taking a class on media ethnography, do not forget to bring a computer with you.
I tried my best to get around to different areas of Gozo, but I had a very hard time with this. It was too far of a distance to walk, and I had a hard time figuring out the bus system at first. I know it probably sounds hilarious that I had such difficulty with something that should have been easy, but I had never taken the bus back where I live in Canada. I got a car as soon as I got my license, so I never had a need to take the bus. So it didn’t work out for me trying to get around to different places in Gozo, and most of my research was done in Victoria, and Xlendi Bay where I was staying.
How personal feelings didn’t help my research
My own personal feelings definitely could have had an effect on my fieldwork. Since I came all the way from Canada, I was really low on sleep during my time in Malta since I couldn’t seem to get used to the time change, which is an eight hour time difference. This made it really hard to concentrate on class work and to muster up the energy to go out and do research.
My frustration with not having a computer also effected my fieldwork. This is because I had to write every instruction down on paper instead of actually being able to learn how to do it on my own computer. So I was able to gather the research that I needed, but I was not able to come home and immediately edit my research. This bothered me because I like to finish my research while my memory is still sharp, that way I can remember every detail about what happened.
Another frustration I constantly struggled with was walking a lot. I walked so much every day so that I could gather the research that I wanted to, and when I came home everyday I was absolutely exhausted, but then I would not feel rested by the morning because I was not able to sleep due to the time difference.
When I arrived in Malta I discovered that all of my fellow classmates were already in their Masters program in university or their PhD. To say the least I was a little intimidated by this, which caused another frustration with my research. Everyone else I was with had a higher education than I did, which I found to be a disadvantage with my research. I did not feel as though what I was researching was as good as a topic as other peoples in my group, and I found myself constantly critiquing my writing and presentations because I wanted my research to be as good as theirs. So I struggled quite a bit in Gozo since I felt out of my league towards the rest of the people in my group, and I still feel like that right now as I write my article. However, many of my classmates reminded me that it could also be an advantage to not have as much as an education in terms of gathering research. When I mentioned this as I was presenting my research to my classmates, everyone also told me that they constantly forgot that I had only completed one year of my bachelors degree because my research was apparently better than I thought it was. I really appreciated them telling me this and it made me more confident in my last couple of days in Gozo.
The final thing that I had difficulty with was the short time period I had to do my research. I was only in Gozo for about ten days, which is a very short time period to be doing ethnographic fieldwork. If I would have gotten more time, I feel like I could have gotten more research, and I think it would have been better since the more practice the better research usually gets. If I would have had more time I would have also gotten the chance to go see more of Gozo and therefore my research would have improved. I also would have developed better questions to ask in interviews since I found that the more interviews I did, the more questions I was able to come up with to better relate to the subjects I was interviewing. An important part of fieldwork also involves building relationships with the people of where you are doing research. I was not able to build a relationship with anyone in Gozo since I had such limited time there. The strongest relationships I built were of course with my fellow classmates, my professor, and with others who helped with the course since they were the people I spent the most time with.
It is obvious that religious art is a very important topic to Gozitans based on the research I have gathered. I really enjoyed getting to speak to different people about their passions and listening to their stories about religious art. Everyone that I spoke to told me about how the connection between art and religion is very important to individuals in Gozo. However, everyone seemed to have a very different answer as to why the connection is so important. I hope that one day I can go back to Gozo to continue the research I have started or to possibly start a different research topic. Everyday I think about the huge Cathedrals and the art that I saw in Gozo, and I wish I could go back.
