The idiomatic expression “out of the blue” indicates in English something unexpected, sudden, incalculable, occurring like lightning in a clear blue sky.
Often the expression is associated with a guest or a visitor who arrives without notice.
The works that make up the programme of Altofest Valletta 2022 invite us to dive into unusual, unexpected spatial dimensions that seem to come out of the blue. They question us eluding discourses based on the use of pre-established categories. Instead, these works lead us through unframed universes, composed of memories and recollections that do not seem to fit in with the other elements at hand and therefore have the power to unhinge historical and biographical narratives, highlighting the pieces of a story that exceeds our understanding of the present.

From this encounter, unseen landscapes may emerge, extraneous, extraterrestrial geographies, towards which we hesitate to take the first step.
In this way, Altofest arranges an encounter with an unexpected guest, asking us to connect with something unforeseen and beyond control that emerges out of the blue.
For this encounter to occur, donor and artist are required, both from a human point of view and in the practice of creation itself, to make an untimely and subversive gesture. It consists in opposing that narrative of the contemporary that leads us to erect new barricades, emphasising defensive apparatuses and reinforcing systems of control. 

The courage to open the door of one’s own home, or to rethink the aesthetics of one’s work, accepting to welcome an unknown and unexpected guest, who stands outside of everything we are familiar with, has always been at the heart of this project. It takes on a further meaning today: to offer us the challenge of keeping open a channel of communication with those we do not understand or do not know.
So how do we welcome the risk of encountering that which presents itself “out of the blue”, coming from outside so far away as to remain unthought of, blending in with those colours that exceed the range of what we can imagine, and obliging us to seek new practices and new linguistic tools to try to enter into dialogue?

Loretta Mesiti – Altofest dramaturg