Art Explora Festival: Cultural Odyssey in the Mediterranean Sea

The Art Explora Festival is the world’s first boat museum and traveling festival in which the public experiences free innovative cultural activities aboard a museum boat. Funded by Creative Europe programme, it is a partnership between Art Explora,  Spazju Kreattiv (Malta), Culturgest (Portugal), Kamel Lazar Foundation (Tunisia), Anima Pictures (Albania), The Island Club (Cyprus), and KEA European Affairs (Belgium).  

Get ready to embark on an extraordinary journey from March 21st to March 31st, 2024, as the Art Explora Festival sets sail in the picturesque city of La Valletta, Malta. Curious to know more about this event and the role of KEA?  

KEA’S ROLE  

KEA’s expertise in research, data collection, and analysis is utilised in assessing the impacts generated by the Festival. Leveraging our expertise in these areas, we’re developing evaluation frameworks and tools to measure the festival’s impacts on both the audience and the partners involved.  

From analysing ticketing data to conducting online surveys, KEA is committed to capturing the essence of this transformative experience both ex-post and in itinere  — after every project activity informative evaluation will be carried out to collect feedback aimed at improving future actions. 

Furthermore, KEA will be responsible for the dissemination of the project’s results and the organisation of a final conference to present them, focusing on highlighting best practices and contributing to the creation of a knowledge base for future projects. 

ARTEXPLORA FESTIVAL  

The Art Explora Festival — conceived and launched by the Art Explora Foundation — stands as the world’s first boat museum and itinerant festival. The initiative takes the audience on a voyage across the seas and oceans aboard a museum boat, offering innovative artistic and cultural experiences completely free of charge. This unprecedented project mirrors the Foundation’s ambition to reduce cultural barriers and promote a broader and more democratic engagement with the arts. 

At the heart of the festival lies the world’s first museum ship, presenting an immersive exhibition experience crafted in collaboration with the Louvre Museum.  Alongside the museum ship, vibrant exhibition spaces are set up on the quaysides of the hosting port, while the entire city of La Valletta buzzes with a dynamic program featuring exhibitions, virtual reality experiences, live performances, thought-provoking conferences, cinematic presentations, and soul-stirring concerts. 

From the spring of 2024 to the autumn of 2026, the museum boat will travel to 15 countries in the Mediterranean, bringing together artists, curators, cultural, associative and educational organizations who, collectively, will imagine a new vision of the Mediterranean.  

Art Explora Festival is part of the Creative Europe programme 2024-2026. The dedicated consortium involves Art Explora (France) as lead partner; Spazju Kreattiv (Malta), Culturgest (Portugal), Kamel Lazar Foundation (Tunisia), Anima Pictures (Albania) as stopover partners; The Island Club (Cyprus) as stopover and residency partner; and KEA European Affairs as evaluation partner.
 

Explore the festival’s agenda and stay tuned to discover where the museum boat will dock next: https://www.artexplora.org/festival/ville/la-valette  

If you want to know more about KEA’s research projects have a look at the dedicated page on our website: https://keanet.eu/research/