Barcelona and Ibiza,
Today the Art Explora Festival, with its museum ship, has docked for the first time at the Port of Barcelona, where it will remain until April 6, before continuing its journey to the Ibiza marina; It will stop there from April 23 to 29. Free access to all audiences, this festival transforms each port where it arrives into a cultural hub, organizing exhibitions, immersive experiences and live performances, on board the ship and also on land.
In Barcelona, the event awaits us at the Barcelona Nord pier, a public space in Port Vell that was opened to citizens a year ago; Art Explora is the first major cultural event to be held there.
Started in 2024 in its current format, this festival is a traveling project that navigates seas and oceans with the purpose of expanding access to the arts with local curators and creators. After eleven stops – last year, Durrës, Nice, Rijeka, Athens and Limassol – and exceeding 350,000 visitors, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands are its next destinations.
Designed by architects Axel de Beaufort and Guillaume Verdier, this sailing catamaran can accommodate up to 2,000 visitors a day. On board, the public will find an immersive sound tour created by IRCAM (Institute for Acoustic/Music Research and Coordination of the Center Pompidou in Paris); It is a Mediterranean soundscape – rural, urban and cultural – accompanied by a virtual reality experience that seeks to allow viewers to travel in time to Alexandria, Athens and Venice in their eras of splendor.
In the port, three other exhibition pavilions expand the experience. The first is Presentcreated next to the Louvre Museum; features another large-format immersive exhibition dedicated to the female figures of Mediterranean civilizations, from the Victory of Samothrace to the anonymous women.
In the Central Pavilion, focused on modern and contemporary art, the exhibition “Under the Azure”, curated by Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel and Blanche de Lestrange, invites us to explore the Mediterranean as a space of myth, memory and tension through compositions by historical and contemporary artists. The monumental sculpture of Marguerite Humeau stands out The Dead (A drifting, dying marine mammal); Gens de la mer by Joan Miró; and the underwater films of Frenchman Jean Painlevé.
At each stop of Art Explora, a heritage object from a local collection anchors the exhibition in the maritime history of that city; in Barcelona, it will be a piece of the Museum of Archeology of Catalonia.
Finally, the Photography Pavilion brings us “Contra; Corriente”, an exhibition of artists from the Arab world who delve into issues such as migration, exile and hospitality in the Mediterranean. They can be seen Anya (Straight Stories – Part 2)by Bouchra Khalili; the specific installation for this space Mass Struggleby Akram Zaatari; and Liquid Traces – The Left-to-Die Boat Casefrom Forensic Oceanography. Its curators are Amanda Abi Khalil and Danielle Makhoul.
In addition, Art Explora will consist of performances, talks, screenings and concerts developed in dialogue with the Mediterranean context and the local art scene, organized together with Rosa Lleó. We can go to the international performance The Ugly Everythingby Poncili Creación and Bartira; to res_ + Coral concerts by Canigó, Nadah El Shazly and Nkisi; or to DJ sets from Ikram Bouloum, Adrasha and Jokkoo Collective.
