The Myth of Abundance is an ongoing research project that examines the historical, cultural, and infrastructural narratives surrounding water extraction and management in Malta. Working as an umbrella project, its interrogation takes on varied formats: writing, curatorial practice, installations, and design provocations. In doing so, it demands an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach, working across sectors and with different practitioners to study water not only as a resource but as a cultural construct shaped by power, technology, and popular mythology. The conceptual genesis of the project has been to confront an enduring paradox: Malta’s chronic water scarcity, dictated by the islands’ geology, and how this terrestrial factuality coexists with a persistent perception of abundance. Over centuries, the islands’ water scarcity has been mitigated through artificial interventions – from stone aqueducts to contemporary desalination plants. While these systems enable survival, they also sustain a mythology of inexhaustibility.

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This Myth of Abundance’s first public research prompt took the form of a designed installation for designWeek – a collective design showcase held in the capital of Valletta. Designed by AP Valletta with curatorial support from Ann Dingli, the dichotomies surrounding the truth of water availability in Malta were given form through the age-old classificatory device known as the Cabinet of curiosities; re-defined as cabinet of provocation. The cabinet assembled artefacts, specimens, symbols, and interactive elements related to Malta’s water production into a speculative taxonomy of truth and myth. Through interactive elements, the cabinet invited viewers to contest and reframe the truths/myths, positioning knowledge as both constructed and negotiable.