Guido Stilon’s Valletta: community and architecture
The exhibition From Where I Stand was set up as an exercise to invite the community to engage with their roots, their home, and their relationship with their city, in this case our beloved Valletta. When we are confronted with the same images of our daily surroundings, it is natural to become very familiar with our home and to take it for granted. With the help of Guido Stilon’s photography, made accessible by the Magna Żmien Foundation, through focus groups, 10 people were given the opportunity to select a photo of Valletta that spoke to them in a meaningful way. Stilon, like the project’s participants, also hailed from this historic city. Born in 1932, in Strada San Paolo, he later lived in St Christopher Street. He was a modest artist who demonstrated a natural raw talent. Known by very few, he treated the craft of artistic photography like a hobby but proved to be very successful in every competition he entered. He even exhibited in New York’s World Fair in 1964, after winning Kodak’s The World and its People competition. Sadly, Stilon passed away at the early age of 43, but his hauntingly beautiful photographs stand as his testament, frozen in time. After Stilon’s works...