Huning Towers
2010

 

In Hunting Towers, Mark Mangion turns his attention to a peculiar and highly conflicted and politically marked feature of the Maltese landscape: the proliferation of makeshift hunting structures, illegally scattered throughout the countryside.

Constructed from salvaged materials and frequently surrounded by planted trees intended to conceal their presence and attract birds, these towers represent a parallel architecture that exists beyond formal planning systems. Neither fully temporary nor officially permanent, they occupy an ambiguous position between private desire and public space.
 

Through an ambitious act of documentation, Mangion photographed almost every hunting tower on the island of Malta. The resulting body of work transforms what might initially appear as a straightforward survey into a critical examination of land use, ownership, and the politics of visibility. The scale of the undertaking is itself significant. By systematically recording these structures, Mangion reveals the extent to which they have become embedded within the rural landscape, forming an unofficial network of occupation that often goes unquestioned.
 

The towers possess an unsettling architectural presence. Built from concrete blocks, corrugated metal, timber, camouflage netting, and discarded materials, they stand as improvised monuments to territorial control. Although constructed for the practical purpose of hunting, they simultaneously function as markers of possession, asserting individual claims over land that is frequently public, protected, or otherwise inaccessible. The planted trees that surround many of the structures reinforce this sense of enclosure, creating artificial pockets of concealment within an otherwise open landscape.
 

Mangion's photographs resist both sensationalism and overt condemnation. Instead, the work adopts the detached visual language of topographic documentation, allowing repetition to become its primary critical strategy. Seen individually, a hunting tower may appear idiosyncratic or even absurd. Viewed collectively, however, they reveal a systematic transformation of the countryside. The accumulation of images exposes a landscape shaped not only by natural processes but also by informal acts of appropriation and control.
 

The project can be understood as a form of counter-cartography. By making visible a network of structures that exist in plain sight yet often escapes critical scrutiny, Mangion challenges accepted understandings of the rural environment. The countryside emerges not as a neutral or pristine space but as a contested terrain in which competing interests—environmental, recreational, political, and economic—leave visible traces.
 

At the same time, the towers operate as potent symbols of a broader cultural condition. Their improvised construction reflects a deeply rooted tradition of self-building and adaptation that characterises much of Malta's built environment. Yet they also embody a tension between individual entitlement and collective responsibility. The structures speak to questions of who has the right to occupy, alter, and define the landscape.
 

Ultimately, Hunting Towers is less a study of hunting than an investigation into the ways power manifests itself spatially. Through patient observation and exhaustive documentation, Mangion reveals an unofficial architecture of occupation that has become normalised within the Maltese countryside. The work transforms these overlooked structures into evidence, inviting viewers to reconsider the landscape not as a passive backdrop but as a site of ongoing negotiation, conflict, and claim-making.