Where does the present fit in between Maltese history?

In Malta there is so much history it risks snuffing out contemporary life. How do you live in and around the glory and ruins of 5000 years of human activity? A fun example was found yesterday afternoon at the Upper Barrakka Gardens where preparations were under way for a wine festival. Tables were being set up in between cannons on the the "saluting battery". If you think about it too much, the proximity of war and leisure seems a strange mix, but in practice it's beautiful, peaceful, and the view unparalleled. However, when I'm visiting Malta, I feel overloaded by "older" or "official" history, whether it's the Knights of Saint John, the ornate churches or something involving World War II. I have a harder time getting a sense of what Malta was like more recently, during the 1970s or 1980s. And what interesting things are Maltese artists, intellectuals and up to today? As a visitor, I have to work hard to find this kind of thing, but it's there. Malta is not alone, artists and creative people in places like Edinburgh and Paris have a hard time doing "new" things under the weight of all that beautiful history.