Floating an Ideal: Art Explora Brings Art to Everyone

At the quay in Le Havre, a majestic catamaran lifts her gleaming 55-metre to the sky. This is the first port of call in the second season of the Art Explora cultural odyssey, where a floating museum ties up to a shoreside festival to make art free and approachable for all.

Following an inaugural two-year season welcoming 400,000 visitors across 14 ports in the Mediterranean, the Art Explora festival made Le Havre the first destination on the Atlantic voyage. A major maritime hub, heavily bombed during WWII and rebuilt around the “poetry of concrete” of architect Auguste Perret, Le Havre is described by UNESCO as a “remarkable example of postwar architecture and urban planning”. Today, the busy shipping harbour welcomes a visiting beauty, adding a buzz of excitement to the atmospheric waterfront that Monet immortalised in his Impression, Soleil Levant canvas.

Art Explora describes itself as a travelling initiative that “bypasses traditional museum walls by docking at international ports to offer immersive digital exhibitions, virtual reality, and multidisciplinary public programming”. The festival, however, is just the tip of the iceberg of the many facets of the non-profit foundation powered by private and corporate donors and volunteers.

Art Explora is the beautiful dream and brainchild of President and Founder Frédéric Jousset, an entrepreneur and philanthropist who believes art is as necessary to human life as air and water. “With boundaries shifting or closing in, we need paths that connect rather than separate”, he said at the launch ceremony, “The ocean is the most beautiful of these paths. This exhibition speaks of water and the living world, a landscape of ancient memory striving to live.”

Of interest to readers across the Atlantic, in a fresh scoop at Le Havre Jousset revealed that Art Explora’s next horizon will take the floating museum to the Caribbean, with Miami earmarked as a future port of call, most likely in 2027. Keep an eye on their Art Explora website for the official announcements.

The new exhibition Song of Water, curated by Artistic Director Blanche de Lestrange, brings together 23 artists past and present from 18 countries in a dialogue between art and science, connected by the blue thread of the ocean. Marine fossils share the main deck with Picasso or Hiroshi Sugimoto, alongside works by contemporary artists, some seen here for the first time. The exhibition was designed specifically for the boat, so space has been reimagined, from peeking into the cabins to Joan Jonas’s mixed-media installation, to a mock jib sail by Laure Prouvost inciting us to “sea where to go”.

The twin-hull sailing vessel is a work of art in her own right. With 47 metres (154 feet) of shimmering champagne-coloured ultralight hulls, and gleaming teak decks, the SV Artexplorer is recognised as the world’s largest aluminium sailing catamaran, according to Italian shipyard Perini Navi.

Back on land, the dockside “village” offers a lively, family-friendly programme, with free admission, in line with the festival’s mission to raise awareness of the fragility and beauty of the sea. There’s the haunting Psychosphere experience by Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen, for a deep dive into the interconnection of living things. Two virtual reality shows Noir de Carbone and La Plage de Sable Étoilé shine a spotlight on the effects of climate change on marine biodiversity, and the new documentary The Art of the Ocean: From the First Explorers to Modern Times looks at how artists “see the sea” through art history. Plus a hypnotic immersive video installation in collaboration with the Louvre Museum retraces the representation of women in Mediterranean art.

Beyond the floating museum and festival, Art Explora is also a free online art history academy, which enables you to obtain a certificate accredited by Sorbonne University. It operates CinéMo mobile cinema, a large lorry criss-crossing French towns and villages to offer free film screenings and educational workshops. There’s more. Art Explora offers mobile museums, in collaboration with Centre Pompidou and Musée d’Orsay in France, and with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in the UK. It also organises art prizes and artist residences, and programs to bring art to retirement homes and hospitals, and engages with cultural institutions, such as the V&A East, across outreach programs and art education.

If any of this appeals to your inner art enthusiast, check out their website to find an event or mobile museum near you, learn, or volunteer.‍ As the traditional maritime good luck saying goes, we wish Art Explora fair winds and following seas.

Le Havre: October 1 to 11, 2026
Saint Malo: October 29 to November 1, 2026
London: January 2027

www.artexplora.org

Lead photo credit : Sailing catamaran Artexplorer Credit S.E. Davis