Corridors & Revisited Memories: Aboard the Seabourn Ovation
Curating art for an ultra-luxury cruise ship is an exquisite pleasure. Like a collection of precious jewels, every space has its own special character. Each one must be outstanding on its own while being cohesive with the others.
We were delighted when world-renowned designer Adam Tihany offered us to join him on a creative journey and curate the art for the Seabourn Ovation. We were tasked with developing the curatorial narratives and put together the art collection for the entire ship - a task that culminated with over 1,600 works by 120 artists, sourced across five continents. Our business relishes projects that let us share art on a global scale, and this project gave us a perfect opportunity.
In developing our theme, we dove deeply into the transformative process of travel. As a traveller explores new places, impressions and new ideas form. Mementos and souvenirs are collected, their journal fills with thoughts, their sense of self continues to evolve and deepen. How can art reflect this experience? The journey inside the travelling self would become the theme of our art collection.
With the challenge set, we embarked on our journey. It took over two years to put the collection together, and during those months of work an unexpected challenge started making itself evident. We could not but realize that we are working on beautiful spaces, connected by long, barren corridors. We started asking ourselves – perhaps we’re overlooking a space with rich potential? Our team is always hunting for blank space to push creative boundaries – and here, we found it.
For those outside the world of cruise ship design, it’s useful for you to know - a ship’s corridors are generally left plain, treated simply as a way to get from one point to the next. Arteries, if you will, functional and transitory. But, spending any time on a ship, one realizes that most of one’s walking time takes place in corridors; it is the longest stretch for lovers to hold hands on their way to meet others or to the privacy of the stateroom, it is where one meets the same fellow travellers and crew members every day, a few times a day. It is an intimate space with hardly any interferences. We decided to emphasize the true character of the corridors and treat them as a uniting element, a driver for engagement, conversation and new friendships.
It was the idea of “Revisited Memories” that helped us find the backbone for our narrative.
“Imagine yourself reading a book at night, it is raining outside your window. You turn the page and a postcard falls out – you pick it up. Your eyes scan the picture and you read the words. Suddenly, a torrent of warm memories comes flooding back. The sights, the smells, the feelings of that moment in time… You feel an urge to travel back and use the card to show what’s coming up for you. Do it.”
This was the brief we sent dozens of artists, together with objects like old love-noted postcards, books, found objects, drawings, maps and other travel souvenirs. They sent back those objects artfully transformed by their hands. Their work would form the final corridor collection.
Travelling facilitates some of our most important inner journeys. We wanted to create art to reflect this process. Now, the guests pass through the corridors more slowly, pausing to look and speak on what they see. Chance encounters occur between them as they stand side by side to look at a piece together, sparking new relationships. They comment on the work, and find their favourites. This collection brings out the final touch of magic for the Ovation – the personalities of those on board. Its role as a connector, and indeed, its very spirit, grows. The art delivers as intended.
We feel that this collection resonates deeply with the challenging days we are going through today, as all of us travel through memories, feelings and impressions from the days of our past.