On 25 October 2025, something unusual slid into Limassol Marina: a 47-metre, 55-metre-high catamaran unlike any vessel the harbour had seen before. It was the Art Explorer – the world’s first purpose-built museum ship – and it had come a long way to get here.
Since setting sail in spring 2024, the boat had already docked in Valletta, Venice, Marseille, Tangier, Málaga, Durrës, Nice, Rijeka, and Athens, gathering over 300,000 visitors along the way. Limassol was its tenth stop, and its final one for 2025.
Ten Days, One City
From 25 October to 4 November, the boat became the anchor point for something bigger. The Art Explora Festival spilled off the deck and into the city itself — Old Port Square, Molos, the Rialto Theatre, the Archaeological Museum, the Old Vinegar Factory, and half a dozen other corners of Limassol’s historic centre.
On board, visitors stepped into two immersive experiences: A Mediterranean Soundscape, an audio journey built with IRCAM and Centre Pompidou, and Mediterranean Wonders, a virtual reality voyage – developed with Ubisoft – back to ancient Alexandria, Athens, and Venice at their peak.
Onshore, the programme ran wider and stranger: a 16-hour durational performance at the Rialto Theatre, folk musicians from Crete and Cyprus playing side by side, a guided walk through a forgotten 50-palm orchard, and The Right to Home, a multi-part exploration of gentrification told through exhibitions, poetry, and late-night sets at Tapper Bar.
By the Numbers
- 15,000+ visitors across the festival’s ten days
- 47m long, 55m high — the dimensions of the museum ship itself
- 2,000 visitors the boat can hold in a single day
- 10+ venues activated across the city
- 300,000+ visitors welcomed by the festival across the Mediterranean before Limassol even entered the picture
