Marie Gallery 5 presents Borrowed Territories, a solo exhibition by Maltese artist Jade Zammit, opening on 24th April. Bringing together works shaped by her travels through Australia, India, Cuba, and Costa Rica, the exhibition explores landscapes marked by layered colonial histories and unexpected cultural parallels.Though geographically distant, these locations reveal subtle visual connections shaped by traces of European influence. Zammit’s work examines how ideas of land, belonging, and identity have been constructed and contested over time. Born in 1990, Zammit is a Maltese visual artist with a background in architecture from the University of Malta. While her earlier work focused on intimate observational drawing, her recent practice introduces bolder colours and textures, reflecting an evolving engagement with space, history, and form.Referencing literary works such as The Secret River by Kate Grenville, she reflects on the imposition of European ownership onto lands long defined by Indigenous knowledge systems, exposing tensions around displacement and belonging.At the same time, Borrowed Territories frames colonisation as an act driven not only by control but also by longing. Settlers attempted to recreate familiar environments in foreign lands, often unsuccessfully, as landscapes resisted imposed identities. This idea informs the notion of “borrowed territories,” where cultural elements may travel, but land retains its autonomy.Zammit’s work also engages with the concept of Anthropophagy, first introduced by Oswald de Andrade, in which identity is actively reshaped through absorbing and transforming external influences. Through drawing and mixed media, she creates layered compositions where multiple histories coexist, blurring geographical and cultural boundaries.Ultimately, the exhibition positions landscape as a site of negotiation and encounter. Spaces shaped by movement, memory, and exchange, yet grounded in their enduring presence. Zammit invites viewers to consider how histories are carried and embedded within the environments we inhabit.Will you be visiting?•