The Art Explora Festival, a free, travelling cultural festival that will sail around the Mediterranean until 2026, will stop over in Tangier from 20th to 29th September and in Rabat from 11th to 17th October in collaboration with curator Laila Hida, assisted by Inès Yahiaoui, and in partnership with Le 18, a multidisciplinary cultural venue based in Marrakech.
The festival will take place on board the museum boat with a welcoming capacity of up to 2000 visitors a day with immersive experiences in partnership with the Louvre Museum and Ircam x Centre Pompidou, as well as quayside in exhibition pavilions designed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte and outside the museum walls in a range of venues in the host cities.
Festival
The year 2024 marks the “kick-off” year for Art Explora’s one-of-a- kind travelling festival, held at sea – on a museum boat designed by Axel de Beaufort and Guillaume Verdier – and on land – in a village with exhibition pavilions created by Jean-Michel Wilmotte.
The remarkably large-size museum boat measuring 47 metres in length, 18 metres in width and a 55-metre mast with sails designed by artist Laure Prouvost bearing a universal, unifying message. A symbol of escape and discovery, boats hold a unique component of adventure and imagination. Sailing from port to port – places of trade par excellence, the catamaran will connect worlds, cultures and people.
The programme will include 3 parts:
- Exhibitions aboard the museum boat (in both Tangier and Rabat)
- Exhibitions in the quayside pavilions (only in Tangier)
- Live programme created in collaboration with curator Laila Hida, which may take place on the Agora – the central stage set up quayside, or in various venues around the city (in both Tangier and Rabat)
“Art Explora’s multidisciplinary festival is a daring, innovative proposal that challenges conventional formats for presenting and representing art. Through the immersive experience on the boat as well as the communal area in the exhibition village, it is a natural call for investing the central stage with forms of artistic expression related to popular and vernacular traditions that characterise many cultures around the Mediterranean.” – Laila HIDA, Curator of the Moroccan ports of call
