Scroll to top
composing and orchestrating imagery
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).

In the past few years, Calleja led and/or participated in the following projects

2018–2020

The Kin Dolls Project

20…

Maħżen Poeżija

2017–2018

Subjective Maps

2018

Baħħ Blu

2017

Scriptorium

2017–2018

Little Bookmakers

2015–2017

EAThink project exhibition

2017

Ħwawar u Fjuri

2016

Bodyless

2014

Fawwara

Ex-VOTO

Chances of Punishment

2011–present

Taħżiż

2012–2013

Milkshake

2013

Biljett Miftuħ

DIXX

Internati u Deportati

2012

AXIS MUNDI

2006, 2012

Imqareb Kliem (Il-Jien u Lil Hinn Minnu ta’ Dun Karm)

2010–2011

TKEĊNIR: kitchen work

2010

Sakemm Tnejn Mhux Wisq

2009

The Depot of Living Things

Publications

2020

Nifs li kważi kissirni

2019

Tessie

2017

Sal-quċċata tal-Everest

Stejjer mid-djar tagħna

2010, 2012, 2017

IR-RAĠEL

2016

Iswed Assolut

Never Arrive

2014

kull flgħaxija kif mal-għabex tnin u tmut saħħet il-jum

Ex-Voto

2013

VV (Viva L-Vitorja)

2011

TKEĊNIR: kitchen work

2010

eeeeeee!

2009

Kieku l-Ikel Jitkellem, (ed. Adrian Grima)

2002

eki t’eki