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Monday 07:30 - 17:00 Tuesday 07:30 - 17:00 Wednesday 07:30 - 17:00 Thursday 07:30 - 17:00 Friday 07:30 - 17:00

ReCoop-The Restoration and Conservation Coop Ltd

Name: ReCoop-The Restoration and Conservation Coop Ltd
Address: Triq L-Esportaturi, Birkirkara, BKR3000, MT
Telephone: +35621491297

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ReCoop-The Restoration and Conservation Coop Ltd

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ReCoop is a fully recognised co-operative made up of professional individuals offering conservation and restoration services.

ReCoop offers a variety of services for objects of Cultural Heritage including Easel and Mural Paintings, Polychrome Sculptures, Ceramics, Glass, Metal, Stone and Marble Artefacts, Monuments and Architectural Sites. Our Services include:

• Conservation and Restoration Treatments
• Condition Surveys and Conservation Audits
• Scientific and Art Historical Research
• Consultancy
• Diagnostic Investigations and Monitoring

09/11/2026

Clint Calleja | X-Corpus | Allegoria

What happens when conservation becomes an act of defiance against time?

For the inaugural installation of Allegoria, artist Clint Calleja revisits the Baroque, polychromed crucifix from the Parish Church of Tarxien, drawing on his direct involvement in its conservation and restoration at RECOOP.

Taking the crucifix’s material vulnerability and X-ray imagery as his point of departure, Calleja transforms the language of conservation into an artistic intervention. Through light, matter and internal activation, X-Corpus explores the fragile relationship between presence and absence, decay and endurance, memory and materiality.

Rather than reproducing the historic object, the work questions the very conditions under which an image survives.

In the face of destruction and annihilation, Allegoria chooses to cure and create.

Allegoria is a contemporary art project by RECOOP, curated by Andrea Depasquale.

Clint Calleja’s work at the Parish Church of the Annunciation in Tarxien is open for viewing on Thursdays and Fridays from 17:00 till 20:00 and on Saturdays and Sundays on from 09:00 till 12:00 and from 17:00 till 20:00.

🎥: Darren Cassar

05/11/2026

In Stuta, Austin Camilleri turns towards what conservation has removed. Using soot and accumulated residues discarded during the restoration of Domenico Guidi’s monument to Grand Master Nicolas Cotoner in the Chapel of the Langue of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre in St John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta, the artist transforms what was once considered waste into materia prima.

A life-sized cape, recreated in wax and soot, becomes a garment without a body. A symbol of authority without an authoritative figure. A form that has outlived the function it once served. Stuta, as an Adornian proposition, bears the marks of suffering and negation rather than offer consoling harmony.

Contrasting the monument’s grandeur and permanence with fragility, absence and decay, Stuta draws attention to the human cost concealed within historical narratives of domination. It does not replace one image of power with another. Instead, it exposes the fragility beneath the spectacle, reminding us that every assertion of permanence is ultimately subject to the conditions of time.

What was removed becomes a material witness to what the splendour of the monument might otherwise obscure.

Stuta is part of Allegoria, a contemporary art production by RECOOP, curated by Andrea Depasquale. In the face of destruction and annihilation, Allegoria chooses to cure and create.

Stuta's visiting hours follow St John's Co-Cathedral standard entrance and visiting policies; Monday to Saturday from 9:00AM to 16:45PM. Last admission is at 4:00PM.

AUSTIN CAMILLERI STUDIO St John's Co-Cathedral

🎥: Darren Cassar

03/11/2026

Congratulations to RECOOP on the launch of STUTA! 🏛️✨

The Malta Co-operative Federation extends its warmest congratulations to our member co-operative RECOOP (The Restoration and Conservation Coop) on the inauguration of STUTA by Austin Camilleri, presented under the ALLEGORIA contemporary art project at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta.

Curated by Andrea Depasquale, the installation bridges the gap between heritage conservation and contemporary artistic expression. Transforming soot—a residue ordinarily removed during restoration—into a delicate, suspended wax garment, the work invites viewers to look beyond monumental grandeur and reflect on memory, human connection, and what endures against disappearance.

In the face of loss, ALLEGORIA chooses to cure and create. This project exemplifies how co-operative enterprises enrich our communities—not only by meticulously preserving our shared cultural heritage, but by leading thoughtful contemporary cultural dialogue.

Well done to ReCoop-The Restoration and Conservation Coop Ltd, AUSTIN CAMILLERI STUDIO, and all collaborators on a remarkable exhibition! 👏🇲🇹

📸 Photo: Darren Cassar

Co-operative News

02/11/2026

Last Saturday evening, we launched STUTA by Austin Camilleri, presented as part of ALLEGORIA, at St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta. The starting point for Camilleri's work was the impact of conservation and restoration on the communal body, society and identity.

Inspired by the monument of Grand Master Nicolas Cotoner by Domenico Guidi in the Chapel of the Langue of Aragon, Catalunya and Navarre, Stuta, is a suspended, almost spectral garment: a black, vortex-like presence, seemingly caught between material existence and disappearance.

A garment without a body. A symbol of authority without an authoritative figure. A form that has outlived the function it once served. Stuta, as an Adornian proposition, bears the marks of suffering and negation rather than offer consoling harmony.

The work transforms soot, a residue ordinarily removed through conservation, into an artistic material fused by heat and compression into a thin wax cape. Camilleri presents the viewer with a counter-image. It does not seek to overpower, nor does it attempt to rewrite history through another monumental gesture. Instead, it quietly unsettles the visual and ideological certainty upon which monumentality itself depends.

The intertwined hands, marked with the same dark residue, place on the steps of the Chapel's altar, introduce a more intimate dimension, a gesture of connection, solidarity and remembrance. Together, these elements invite us to look beyond the grandeur of monuments and consider the human stories, often overlooked, that lie beneath them.

Stuta does not offer us the comforting illusion of permanence. It offers something more honest: the possibility of finding meaning in what remains, in what has been discarded, in what has been overlooked and in what has survived against the certainty of disappearance.

In the face of destruction and annihilation, Allegoria chooses to cure and create. Allegoria is contemporary art project by RECOOP, curated by Andrea Depasquale.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us for the inauguration and to all those who contributed to bringing this project to life.

AUSTIN CAMILLERI STUDIO St John's Co-Cathedral

🎥: Darren Cassar

28/10/2026

At St John’s Co-Cathedral, Allegoria moves into its final act.

With Stuta, Austin Camilleri turns to an essential element of conservation and restoration that is the impact of the process on the communal body. He steps into the space occupied by residues of combustion and the slow sedimentation of time, and into the questions of how power inscribes itself into permanence and what remains when that permanence gives way.

Is entropy only the decay of matter, or also the erosion of the narratives it was built to carry? Allegoria does not answer. Camilleri intends to create the conditions to encounter the question through his work Stuta. The very soot and smoke residue that time deposits on an image, and that the conservator painstakingly removes to reveal what lies beneath, Camilleri boldly reclaims, turning what is discarded into a memento mori for the fragility of man.

His point of departure is the sepulchral monument of Grand Master Nicolas Cotoner by Domenico Guidi at St John’s Co-Cathedral, restored and conserved by RECOOP between 2006 and 2008, who are also producing Allegoria together with Andrea Depasquale as its curator. The monument stands as a powerful visual articulation of Baroque triumphalism: the

Grand Master emerges elevated above the defeated bodies of his enemies, surrounded by allegorical trophies celebrating victory and dominion. It is a striking manifestation of how power historically sought to inscribe itself into permanence through matter transforming bronze, marble and gold into instruments of immortality.

Within the Chapel of the Langue of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre, the intervention establishes a contemplative dialogue with the chapel’s existing visual language, engaging themes of power, memory, material transformation and the inevitable passage of time. In the face of destruction and annihilation, Allegoria chooses to cure and create.

23/10/2026

We’re glad to announce Austin Camilleri as the third and final artist who will be exhibiting his work at the Chapel of the Langue of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre at St John’s Co-Cathedral as part of Allegoria’s revelation.

For Allegoria, Austin Camilleri intends to present a contemporary response to the sepulchral monument of Grand Master Nicolas Cotoner by Domenico Guidi restored by RECOOP between 2006 and 2008.

Camilleri is a visual artist whose installations, paintings, drawings, sculptures, architectural and video work reflect a deep inquiry into the human condition as it intertwines with the non-human. His practice is rooted in notions of transience and polarities, spiritual discernment and political scrutiny. For Allegoria, a contemporary art project devised by RECOOP and curated by Andrea Depasquale he takes on the impact of conservation and restoration on the communal body, immersing himself in the notion of entropy as the erosion of narratives as much as of matter.

In the face of destruction and annihilation, Allegoria chooses to cure and create.

Photos: Darren Cassar

AUSTIN CAMILLERI STUDIO
Austin Camilleri

21/10/2026

Allegoria is coming for our curiosity as an experiment, created to explore the limits of preserving art through art itself. Devised by RECOOP and curated by Andrea Depasquale, this initiative stands as an ode to humanity that chooses to cure and create.

On the 1st of November, Allegoria’s final act will be displayed in the Chapel of the Langue of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre at St John’s Co-Cathedral, with the collaboration and support of The St John’s Co-Cathedral Foundation and its teams contributing to its realisation.

13/10/2026

We're still on cloud nine from last Saturday's launch of Pierre Portelli's Kerubini at the Church of St Francis of Assisi as part of RECOOP's contemporary art production, Allegoria, curated by Andrea Depasquale.

For Kerubini, Portelli, places five cherubs at the threshold between altar and congregation, each holding a mobile phone and photographing the recently restored altarpiece by Mattia Preti. The gesture is legible at once, and the work's ambition lies in what that legibility conceals. He proposes that the contemporary act of photographing a sacred image belongs to a long history of mediation, and that conservation itself participates in it. The proposal gains urgency from the condition in which images now exist, for the photograph taken before the Preti is no longer a picture in the older sense. It is data, and its morphology differs radically from that of the painting it records.

In the face of destruction and annihilation, Allegoria chooses to cure and create. We would like to thank the entire Maltese Order of Friars Minor Conventual (OFM Conv) for their courage to showcase this work in the church they officiate in particular the Head Friar of the Valletta community Fra George Micallef and the Provincial Vicar Fr Paul Darmanin.

Allegoria’s website will soon be launching too. There you’ll find more about RECOOP’s contemporary art project, along with the initiatives we’ll be organising throughout the run of the exhibits.

Kerubini is open daily from 7am till 12 pm and from 4 till 18:30.

📸 - Darren Cassar

11/10/2026

Allegoria moves into its next act.

Starting today, 11 October, Kerubini by Pierre Portelli opens for viewing at the Church of St Francis of Assisi in Valletta. Yesterday we had the pleasure of launching Portelli’s exciting work which turns to an essential element of conservation and restoration: perception.

Stepping into the space occupied by data, imagery, and anthropological constructs, Portelli asks how images are preserved and what they mean today.

His point of departure is Mattia Preti’s Madonna Portiuncola, restored and conserved by RECOOP last year and sponsored as part of its 20th Anniversary initiatives. The painting itself is about transmission, a sacred exchange held aloft by frolicking cherubs, bathed in light, and dependent on our activated perception in an era of constant reproduction.

In the face of destruction and annihilation, Allegoria chooses to cure and create. Allegoria is a contemporary art production by RECOOP, curated by Andrea Depasquale.

Kerubini will be on view for an incubatory period of three months.

We look forward to welcoming you!

🎥 - Darren Cassar

Address

Triq L-Esportaturi
Birkirkara
BKR3000

Opening Hours

Monday	07:30 - 17:00
Tuesday	07:30 - 17:00
Wednesday	07:30 - 17:00
Thursday	07:30 - 17:00
Friday	07:30 - 17:00

Telephone

+35621491297

Website

https://recoop.mt/

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