‘Jubilee Grove’ is a parcel of steep-sloping land which was formed as a fortification glacis, two minutes’ walk away from where I was born and raised. In the 1930s, during the Silver Jubilee, it was planted by the British rulers with an arbitrary grid of pine trees, rumoured as an effort to curtail early insurrectionist gatherings in the area close to the capital. Its geographical position with respect to neighbouring towns is such that it never called for mainstream leisurely gathering or significant pedestrian footfall. Little is known about its use since, if not for disparate accounts of gay cruising by the regular flocks of foreigners brought in by the British Navy. Decades later, the advent of recreational drug culture would claim the grove, also catalysed by its immediate proximity to a major government clinic tasked with nursing users. The neighbourhood soon became the beating heart of heroin culture on the island, with Jubilee Grove being a nerve centre. Human-sized piles of soiled syringes, some of which also forcefully lodged in the barks of trees, would be found years later together with sparse harrowing burnt patches of land. As the heroin wave subsided locally in the 2000’s, another group of people started its home in the grove. These were, in most part, closeted middle aged men seeking and offering free sexual promiscuity. Unlike other forms of prostitution or structured transgression, this was a very peculiar phenomenon, unique on the island, given how starkly Catholic the large majority of the island, especially from elder generations, professed to be at the time. The deep sense of ‘illicitness’ here had very little to do with illegality. The culture of long-standing catholic honour shrouded homosexuality in a shame so unbearable as to force such men, with families back home, into a parallel life lived precariously within such a small parochial community as the Maltese. The grove thus itself lent itself as a veritable natural home for them. The more time passed, the deeper the stigma of the place grew in the collective consciousness of the inhabitants of the area. Growing up and coming to age in the nearest town, the place, for me, was and is charged with a dark shame-laden energy so gut-wrenching, that none of my parents needed to ever prohibit me to go explicitly. It is understood that I would understand not to. I didn’t even know why I ought not to go - I just knew I wouldn’t want to. Countless police reports filed for robbery, also by numerous clerics, were repeatedly revealed as cases wherein someone visits the area hoping for a meetup, only to find their belongings missing upon returning to dress back up. Despite its rich history of crime and illegal activity, the press covering or mentioning the grove over the years is negligible. It seems to bring with it a sense of unacknowledged, implicit unease which impedes explicit exploring. Nobody wanted to hear what they knew, and conveniently, nobody wanted to say it. The grove became something of an emblem, culturally, welcoming everything which, at different points in history, people feel they have to conceal. It offered some momentary sense of connection, common understanding, to people who felt they had to deny it to themselves elsewhere. I walk there - the space, the trees, absorbed it. The decision to engage in this project, however, was informed mostly by a recent turn of events: I encountered my new neighbour, recently moved into the area, walking her dog. I asked where she was taking him, and she said she was going to the park. The recent flux of young expats to the island, followed by the Covid-19 pandemic driving people to rethink their immediate surroundings and open spaces, set forth this unexpected shift. Newcomers, entirely unaware of all the above, started using the grove regularly for picnics and leisurely family gatherings. To this day, one can visit the grove at some points during the day and week, and find a three metre footpath separating a row of male cruisers waiting, and families enjoying their leisurely time, with their dogs, friends and children. At long last, the grove inherited the parallel life led by those it was known to welcome. This project is then intended as a fact-less survey of the physical space of the grove, shot entirely with a 500mm lens, exclusive to concealed voyeurs, aimed mostly at the trees, consistently breaking, healing, and witnessing their surroundings.