AFTER its stop in Rijeka (Croatia), the Art Explora Festival and its museum boat has sailed to Greece for the very first time and has docked at the port of Piraeus, from 3 to 12 October 2025 for 10 days of free art and cultural experiences.

THE ART EXPLORA FESTIVAL is free and open to everyone. It is a travelling festival that sails across seas and oceans aboard the world’s first museum boat. It offers innovative artistic and cultural experiences through a programme of immersive visual, sound, and virtual reality experiences presented on board the museum boat, as well as exhibitions quayside, and in a range of venues in the host cities. The live programme — including performances, concerts, dance, installations, talks, and workshops — is curated by the renowned Greek curator Katerina Tselou.

Immersive experiences on board the museum boat:

• On the upper deck an immersive audio experience centred around the richness and diversity of the Mediterranean, designed and produced by Ircam, the French Institute for Research in Acoustics/Music attached to Centre Pompidou in Paris.

• Inside the boat travel through time and space with the Mediterranean Wonders virtual reality series. Developed in partnership with Ubisoft, this experience allows you to visit iconic Mediterranean cities such as Athens, Alexandria, and Venice at the height of their splendor.

The exhibition pavilions quayside:

• The immersive Present exhibition created as part of an exceptional collaboration with the Louvre Museum, highlights female figures in Mediterranean civilisation through the digitization of some of the Louvre’s collections. This two-stage event starts with an introductory film, which provides context for the subsequent immersive experience that takes place in a 16-metre-long tunnel covered with 120 m² of LED screens.

• The Under the azure contemporary art exhibition in the central pavilionis a collection of works by around 20 artists that takes inspiration from the evocative power of the Mediterranean Sea, the myths surrounding it, the creatures that inhabit it and the visions it conjures up. The artists featured include: Etel Adnan, Simone Fattal, Edi Hila, Marguerite Humeau, Marisa Merz, Joan Miró and Anri Sala. Curators: Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel and Blanche de Lestrange.

• The photo pavilion houses the Undertow exhibition of photography and moving images which focuses on relationships between hospitality, migration and exile through the work of around 15 contemporary artists from the Arab world. The artists featured include: Majd Abdel Hamid, Bouchra Khalili, Randa Maroufi, Valentin Noujaïm, Sara Sadik and Akram Zaatari. Curators:Amanda Abi Khalil and Danielle Makhoul.

Community experiences:

•Katerina Stefanidaki & Zafos Xagoraris -Instantaneous Geometries, a unique printing workshop for school students and other visitors in the port of Piraeus–October 11 & October 12.

•Archipelago Network –Echoes of the Aegean, a full evening dedicated to Cycladic maritime culture, with live radio, documentary footage, music and more –October 11

•SCOLA SOCIETY Celebration, closing the festival with communal music and intergenerational celebration – October 12.

See the full programme of events here