Glen Calleja (b. 1978)

Glen Calleja is a Maltese artist mainly interested in poetry and the book as object.

His artistic work often involves alternative book structures, found content and performative elements.

Glen is co-founder of Studio Solipsis, a cultural venue operating since 2017 where events, workshops, gatherings and exhibitions are held. Studio Solipsis is also home to Calleja’s bookbinding business, Kotba Calleja, to Giola Cassar’s photography studio and to two voluntary organisations Fondazzjoni HELA and Inizjamed.

Glen has led and participated in a number of interdisciplinary artistic projects. As a writer, Calleja writes mainly in Maltese but has also published poetry, essays and short stories in English. In his writing and artistic work, Calleja often explores issues relating to the passage from boyhood to manhood and the politics and perceptions of masculinity. Since 2013, he has also been researching, through poetry, the impact of cancer on patients, survivors and their families.

In his poetry, he regularly recycles from earlier writings, re-proposing them in new forms, exhibiting a clear interest in emerging literary formats. On occasion, Calleja also integrates ‘found texts’ in his work.

His poetry books include eki t’eki (2002), IR-RAĠEL (2010, 2012) and kull flgħaxija kif mal-għabex tnin u tmut saħħet il-jum (2014) and ‘Iswed Assolut’ a series of poetic variations dealing with moral spectatorship vis-a-vis migration.

In 2018, together with co-author Marco Cremona, Calleja received the national book award for the ‘Biographical and historiographic research’ category with the book Sal-Quċċata tal-Everest (Merlin).