In October 2024, Heritage Malta announced the exhibition ‘TOPIA’, an installation by London-based artist Barnaby Barford which opened on the 22nd of October 2024 and ran until 19th January 2025.

Hosted at MUŻA, Malta’s National Community Art Museum, ‘TOPIA’ explored Malta’s heritage, culture, and communities by focusing on one of the island’s most iconic features – its shops.

Heritage Malta’s collaboration with Barnaby Barford, which was a first for the agency, took tangible shape within the museum’s walls in the form of 1,000 miniature handmade fine bone china shops which sparked the imagination of all those who visited the exhibition.

To create his installation, Barford embarked on a journey across every town and village in Malta and Gozo, amassing over 11,000 photographs of shops, creating a portrait of contemporary life on the islands.

The photographs were then used to make 1,000 miniature buildings, each representing one of the shops he encountered. The buildings, each a unique work of art, were assembled by the artist to form a Maltese street, framed by two rubble walls that are so typical of the island’s landscape.

The exhibition also featured recorded interviews with shop owners, offering visitors an intimate connection with the faces behind the shop façades.

‘TOPIA’ encapsulated the immense transformation of Malta’s townscapes and of the nation’s consumption habits in the past decades. The small corner groceries of our childhood, where housewives gathered to fetch the daily household essentials and chat with the neighbours, have all but disappeared. Those intimate experiences from a slow-paced lifestyle long gone, have morphed into the anonymity of supermarkets, sprawling shopping malls, large specialty stores, and online shopping.

‘Topia’ did not seek a black or white answer as to the benefits or otherwise of this profound transformation. Nor did it aim to simply trigger nostalgia of old economic and social trends. Rather, it encouraged reflection on our unfolding socio-cultural landscape, inviting visitors to ponder the subtle nuances we take little notice of until they become glaring contrasts we cannot ignore.

The outlets presented in this exhibition – their location, their services or products, their owners, and their history – told ordinary stories in an extraordinary way. This is why the installation is still sparking interest despite ending its run.