Art Explora Festival: A springtime celebration of culture in Albania

Art Explora Festival © Art Explora Festival

Spring 2025 will see the Art Explora Foundation launch two major cultural projects in a key country in the Mediterranean's emerging art scene:

• Wednesday 9 April — Vila 31 — Art Explora, Tirana, a residency for research and artistic experimentation with space to host up to 30 artists per year
• Thursday 10 April — The Art Explora Festival in Durrës, the first stop of 2025 for the travelling festival and its museum boat on its voyage across the Mediterranean

As part of its commitment to sharing culture with as many people as possible, in 2024 the Art Explora Foundation launched the Art Explora Festival, a travelling cultural festival that takes place aboard a museum boat. Designed to traverse seas and oceans, the project offers innovative artistic experiences that are completely free of charge. On its journey across the Mediterranean, the Art Explora Festival honours local artists and promotes a dialogue around the greatest challenges of our time. Having already dropped anchor in Valetta (Malta), Venice (Italy), Marseille (France), Tangier (Morocco), Rabat (Morocco) and Malaga (Spain), the festival is now setting a course for Albania, where it will stop in Durrës from 10 to 21 April 2025.

The year 2025 also marks the opening of Vila 31 in Tirana. This iconic new space will expand the portfolio of the international Art Explora Residencies programme launched in Montmartre, Paris, in 2021. Located in the former private residence of dictator Enver Hoxha and transformed into a dedicated space for contemporary creation by architectural firm NeM Architectes, Vila 31 in Tirana will host up to 30 artists per year in addition to offering a rich cultural programme designed for everyone.

Wednesday 9 April - Inauguration of Vila 31 — Art Explora in Tirana

To mark its launch, Vila 31 is organising an open weekend to showcase this newly renovated space and present the first artists in residence, as well as putting on a programme of cultural events open to everyone.

This open weekend will also host an interdisciplinary seminar aimed at promoting links between different art scenes, co-funded by the European commission and organised in conjunction with ENSAPC (École nationale supérieure d'arts de Paris-Cergy—a national public art school in Paris), the Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje, and the Oral History Initiative based in Pristina, Kosovo.

From 9 to 13 April, the programme will focus on the works and ideas of the artists in residence, as well as performances, discussions, workshops, lectures and screenings, with this inaugural weekend dedicated to exchanges between the public and artists. The international artists resident at Vila 31 will benefit from a combined living and workshop space, as well as a grant to help them develop their artistic creation. A photography workshop, a publishing workshop, a library and a projection room are also available for the artists to use, with researchers and curators invited to live and work alongside the artists as well.

In addition, Vila 31 will host a variety of local and emerging artistic initiatives, for example artist-run spaces, community groups and independent publishing houses. Throughout the year, a programme of screenings, performances, discussions and exhibitions will open up the Vila to the general public.

In May 2025, Art Explora will also launch a cross- programme residency split between Paris and Tirana. This will offer artists a three-month residency in Tirana, followed by a three-month residency in Paris as part of Art Explora's Cité Internationale des Arts programme. The initiative aims to strengthen the ties between the French and Albanian art scenes by giving artists the opportunity to immerse themselves in both European capitals.

"Vila 31 — Art Explora is more than just a space for residencies: it's a bridge between cultures, artists and audiences. It's an invitation to take part in creative exchange and experimentation. Vila 31 is part of a dynamic of collaboration and dialogue that goes beyond borders while also supporting local and emerging contemporary creation, and bringing together artists and audiences". Blanche de Lestrange, Art Explora Foundation Artistic Director.

Thursday 10 April - Inauguration of the Art Explora Festival and museum boat in Durrës

After 6 ports of call in 2024, the Art Explora Festival's first stop of 2025 will be Durrës from 10 to 21 April. The live program is curated by the Albanian curator Arnisa Zeqo, in collaboration with Anima Pictures in charge of production.

The festival is hosted aboard the world's very first museum boat, as well as quayside in various exhibition pavilions and communal spaces, with a programme that combines exhibitions, virtual reality, performances, conventions, film screenings and concerts. The festival offers packages tailored to all audiences, with dedicated tours and workshops for schools and local groups.

"Mobility and artistic creation are powerful tools to help challenge perspectives, and share images and stories to create different relationships with the world. Boarding a boat is an experience in itself; it's even more remarkable when you find unique artistic and cultural endeavours on that boat, as well as quayside." Frédéric Jousset, Art Explora Foundation Chairman.

Programme for the Art Explora Festival in Durrës from 10 to 21 April

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 and Coordination in Acoustics/ Music at the Pompidou Centre in Paris) and Ircam Amplify.

Inside the boat: Travel through time and space with the Mediterranean Wonders virtual reality series. Developed with Ubisoft, this installation allows you to experience iconic Mediterranean cities such as Athens, Alexandria and Venice.

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 digitisation 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 exhibit in the central pavilion is 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 Contre;courant 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.

The live program has been curated by Arnisa Zeqo and developed in collaboration with Anima Pictures in charge of production

A multidisciplinary and free programme of performances, concerts, film screenings, dance shows, workshops and discussions is open to everyone. The Art Explora Festival highlights Durrës' historical and archaeological heritage by connecting it with the international contemporary arts and culture scene. During the festival, several heritage sites in this historic Albanian city will be revitalized and opened to the public.

Entitled "Of Cities and Women: A flute, a bell, waters", the lineup features feminist mythologies, speculative narratives and autobiographies. The title is a reference to a collection of letters by Lebanese artist and writer Etel Adnan and a series of research trips with local artists Bora Baboçi and Leah Witman Salkin. Writing at the start of the 1990s, Adnan complied a series of letter from different towns and cities to a friend in exile where she explores the complexities of Mediterranean cultures and her interest in their (often forgotten) mythical dimension. The festival is based on an imagined additional letter sent from the port of Durrës to local inhabitants and those across the Mediterranean. The artistic contributions offer a way of unlocking stories that have been forgotten, erased or re- imagined. The gatherings of the Art Explora Festival in the port of Durrës become a vessel carrying voices across the sea and through time.

Arnisa Caterina Zeqo is a Tirana born writer, curator, and educator based in the Netherlands. She cofounded rongwrong, a space for art and theory in Amsterdam, and is now working as director of Kunsthuis SYB in Beetserzwaag, Her work is embedded into artistic practices dealing with performance, fiction, stories of art and education. In 2015-17 she worked for documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel, responsible for the education programs ("aneducation").

As one of the Art Explora Festival's main partners, the Accor Group played a key role in its inaugural success. This partnership, formalised in Marseille, reflects Accor's commitment to sharing the arts with as many people as possible. Sensitive to the challenges faced by the Art Explora Foundation, Accor, together with its employees, its ALL - Accor Live Limitless loyalty programme and its hotels, is ready and waiting to support the festival in every country along the way.

The partnership draws on the Accor Group's ALL - Accor Live Limitless reservation platform and loyalty programme to offer exclusive experiences for its members at the festival.

Save the date

Wednesday 9 April
Inauguration
Vila 31 - Art Explora
FROM 3 PM
Rruga Pjetër Bogdani, Tirana

Thursday 10 April
Inauguration
Art Explora Festival
FROM 3 PM
Port of Durrës General Cargo
Terminal - Quay 1, Durrës