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Programme
The first route of the museum ship will be the Mediterranean, an area of millennia of history and exchange, which has always mobilized and nourished the inspiration of artists, and naturally invites intercultural dialogue.
Discover the programme of activities on the quayside and in the towns: performances, concerts, conferences, screenings, workshops, meetings and other events.
Upcoming events
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Experiences on board the museum boat
Experience on reservation. Duration: 45 min.
Kitchen workshop, Mastro Sol, Maja Escher
In this workshop, each participant shapes and decorates a cookie figure for Mastro Sol, an installation inspired by Alentejo festival rituals, where figures are hung from festive masts. Each piece carries the gesture and story of its maker, joining others in a collective artwork made by many hands. When Mastro Sol is exhibited on June 27 at 11:00 am, you can return to find your figure and see how it became part of the final piece.
Caravanserá Workshop
Before the performance (on June 27th), audiences are invited to take part in a participatory workshop where movement, sound, and collective actions gradually shape the world of Caravanserá. Inspired by historical “caravanserais” – places of encounter and exchange –, the workshop creates an informal space where participants of different ages contribute to the atmosphere of the performance, blurring the boundaries between audience and performers.
Kitchen workshop, Mastro Sol, Maja Escher
In this workshop, each participant shapes and decorates a cookie figure for Mastro Sol, an installation inspired by Alentejo festival rituals, where figures are hung from festive masts. Each piece carries the gesture and story of its maker, joining others in a collective artwork made by many hands. When Mastro Sol is exhibited on June 27 at 11:00 am, you can return to find your figure and see how it became part of the final piece.
Caravanserá Workshop
Before the performance (on June 27th), audiences are invited to take part in a participatory workshop where movement, sound, and collective actions gradually shape the world of Caravanserá. Inspired by historical “caravanserais” – places of encounter and exchange –, the workshop creates an informal space where participants of different ages contribute to the atmosphere of the performance, blurring the boundaries between audience and performers.
NEW BOWING BAND
NEW BOWING BAND is a project aimed at creating an intercontinental band that blends the musical traditions of the diverse cultures found in the municipality of Odemira. It is the stories and musical experiences of each musician that shape this soundscape, marked by a variety of influences. It is, therefore, a gathering of musicians from different countries who come together to play, sing, and, above all, create a new, contemporary, and vibrant sound.
Sopa de Pedra
Sopa de Pedra is an all-female Portuguese vocal ensemble exploring the country's oral traditions, long carried by women work songs, lullabies, romances, festive and devotional chants. Their music is built around a cappella polyphony, at times accompanied by traditional percussion such as the adufe and pandeiro. Through their multi-voice arrangements, they breathe new life into a heritage long confined to the domestic sphere, bringing it onto contemporary stages in Portugal and abroad.
PLO Man
In a DJ set shaped by dense atmospheres and subtle sonic drifts, PLO Man builds a sonic journey where house, techno, breakbeat and dub echoes intersect in a fluid way. Closely connected to the universe of Acting Press, a cult label within the underground electronic scene, he develops an approach attentive to texture, duration and the slow transformations of the dancefloor. The video projection of an original drawing by JAS expands this sensory experience.
KAI – JAS & Pedro Moura
An immersive performance where live drawing and sound unfold together. Through the collaboration between JAS and Pedro Moura, image and music merge into a shared sensory experience.
Bal Moderne
A contemporary dance event where everyone is invited to take part in a lively and joyful late afternoon full of movement. The audience learns, in just a few minutes, choreographies created by international artists, becoming performers themselves. Between learning and celebration, this collective format dissolves the boundaries between stage and audience, fostering connection, sharing, and the discovery of contemporary dance through direct experience.
CAROLF
In an immersive DJ set, CAROLF guides the audience through subtle sonic landscapes, weaving experimental textures, ethereal atmospheres, and sporadic rhythms. Her selection reveals a deep sensitivity to detail and mood. The experience is enhanced by video projections of JAS’s original drawings, creating a sensory dialogue where sound and image merge into a contemplative, ever-evolving universe.
Fiz um foguete imaginando que você vinha, de Janaína Marques
Rosa lies inside an MRI machine. She is asked to think of a happy memory, something she doesn’t have. It is time to create one, by returning to her childhood, when her mother was arrested and accused of murder. And there they are, in a realistic reverie, travelling in an old hot dog van along the dirt roads of northern Brazil. Janaína Marques’ feature debut is a guided tour through a mind in turmoil, its landscapes and its wounds.
Past events
The Abduction of Europa
A unique workshop for children, inspired by the myth of Europa’s abduction by Zeus combining storytelling with live drawing.
"Undercurrents" - An Ambient Set by Fo
Between port and open sea, this ambient set drifts with the voices of waves and unseen creatures. Electronic textures merge with the primal pulse of water, evoking both the vastness of the water element and the intimacy of its depths. A meditation on sea, sound, and femininity, where the ancient power of nature finds resonance in the present moment. Curated by HER x Project
Athens Biennale x Art Explora
Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman & Daniel Keller – The Seasteaders. In The Seasteaders, Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman and Daniel Keller examine the controversial “seasteading” movement, initiated by a group of libertarians seeking to build floating, tax-free cities as experimental societies beyond government control. While presented as solutions to governmental “stagnation” and climate change, the film reveals links to anti-democratic, techno-utopian, and alt-right ideologies. Through this screening, the Athens Biennale invites us to confront this uneasy entanglement and to question new forms of colonialism amid today’s global crises.
When I was a child, I used to see my mother's feet bare and cracked…
A physical and poetic performance that delves into the body’s memory, maternal legacy, and the silent weight of trauma. Through symbolic gestures, fragmented monologues, and intimate rituals with stone, water, and fabric, exploring themes of pain, resilience, and transformation. Blending personal narrative with collective emotion, the piece becomes a space where memory and the tragic beauty of the body intertwine.
Like a house
Como una casa is a medium-length film that recounts Ainara's entire journey in Spain and the violence she suffered in Madrid's Centro de Internamiento de Extranjeros.
In ex situ
Antonis Vais, in collaboration with 12 performers of the ASFA Laboratory 12 (Professor Poka Yio), reclaim the pier of Gate E8 at the port of Piraeus. In this land’s edge, whose only border is the sea, they wish to reposition corporeality at the core of site-specific research. Seeking ways, situations, and conditions in which the individual, as part of a larger whole and as a unit, relates to the arrival, departure from, and stay in intermediate places of temporary habitation – such as the port – they activate a perpetual movement: that of the multitude, whose function aims to overemphasize the importance of transience.
Untitled (Figures)
For Untitled (Figures) Lenio Kaklea embraces everything that is queer in her through a catalogue of danced figures (the cowgirl, leather culture, disco and the figure of the sailor) and pays homage to the capacity of queer cultures, teaching us to love the female body.
Athena's Antennae
In Athena’s Antennas, Chrysanthi Koumianaki, in collaboration with two performers, proposes a series of ephemeral public sculptures. Turning her gaze to the rooftops of Athens’ apartment buildings as the city’s edges, she imagines the buildings as bodies and their rooftops and balconies as limbs. The industrial equipment found there transforms into an evolving form of public sculpture, like a peculiar parasitic forest or an open-air sculpture gallery. Satellite dishes are translated into wicker hats and become props within an evolving stage setting.
ATOPOS cvc x Office of Hydrocommons x Art Explora Liquid Ports
Liquid Ports group show with works by Ileana Arnaoutou & Ismene King, Despina Charitonidi, Eleni Mylonas, Maria Nikiforaki
Thessaloniki International Film Festival x Art Explora
Alinda Dimitriou, Nikos Kanakis, Fournoi, A Female Society, 1983, 47′. On the island of Fournoi, in Ikaria, a researcher observes the lives of the inhabitants. He has neither a script nor prepared questions; he simply observes. The island thus comes alive before our eyes, through its inhabitants, their memories, their struggles, and their daily labor. 10 19:45>20:45
Arc Carrier
Arc Carrier is a site-specific sound performance that explores the relationship between electricity and acoustics, transforming invisible electromagnetic fields into sonic matter that resonates throughout space.
Untitled (Figures)
For Untitled (Figures) Lenio Kaklea embraces everything that is queer in her through a catalogue of danced figures (the cowgirl, leather culture, disco and the figure of the sailor) and pays homage to the capacity of queer cultures, teaching us to love the female body.
New World Folk Experience
A far out live electronics set that attempts to save almost extinct folk ear bugs, by revamping and arranging them for voice, vocoder and modular synthesizer.
Let’s play Cycladoupolis
Come and play with us Cycladoupolis, the board game created by the Museum of Cycladic Art and WWF aiming to inform and raise awareness of the Cycladic civilization and its heritage as well as the environmental challenges of the Cycladic islands.
Storytime with Eleni Andreadi
The sustainability expert and children’s books author Eleni Andreadis reads excerpts from her new, book, a fresh collection of fairy tales, where old, classic stories are overturned and recreated for the modern era, highlighting the power of fairy tales to make our planet better!
Frequently asked questions
The Art Explora Festival will take place from spring 2024 to spring 2026 in various Mediterranean cities.
Festival events take place both on the museum boat's quay and in heritage and/or emblematic sites in the stopover towns. To find out all about upcoming events in your town, consult our Agenda.
The Art Explora Festival offers a rich, multi-disciplinary program including visits to the museum ship, exhibition pavilions, virtual reality experiences, artistic performances, concerts, lectures, film screenings, creative workshops and meetings. You'll be able to discover local and international artists, as well as thinkers and cultural players exploring contemporary themes related to the Mediterranean region. To find out all about upcoming events in your city, consult our Agenda.
All Festival events are free of charge. Please note, however, that some events - such as workshops - require a reservation via the ticket office. Please consult the page dedicated to each event for more information on times and booking procedures.
To ensure that everyone has the best possible experience at the Festival, we have drawn up a visitors' charter listing a few good practices.
Yes, the boat is freely accessible on site. However, you can pre-book your time online on our website.
For reasons of safety and preservation of the boat, high heels and stilettos may not be worn on the boat.
To take part in the workshops and meetings offered during the Festival, you'll generally need to register in advance. Information on how to register will be available on the dedicated event page, where you can also find details of times and how to take part.
Yes, the Art Explora Festival also offers child-friendly activities, such as creative workshops specially designed for young participants. Take a look at the program to find out about events and activities for children and families.
The museum boat is open to all free of charge. To find out on which quay it will be moored, or to pre-book your slot, consult the page dedicated to your town.
Appropriate facilities have been set up on the Festival site for the reception and access of people with reduced mobility. The boat is equipped with a 1m-wide ramp, accessible to people with reduced mobility, but may require the accompaniment of a third party due to its gradient of over 6%. Access to the aft deck and immersive exhibition is possible. However, the upper deck is not accessible. Please inform us in advance of any special accessibility requirements, so that we can make the necessary arrangements.
Thank you for your interest in the Art Explora Festival! To find out more about our volunteer opportunities and to apply, please visit our "Become a volunteer"section of our website. There you'll find all the information you need about the roles available and the application procedure. We look forward to meeting you!
We're delighted to consider new partnerships for the Art Explora Festival. To find out how, please visit our dedicated page or write to us at contact@artexplora.org