Ilya & Emilia Kabakov The Ship of Tolerance

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov's The Ship of Tolerance is a travelling collaborative art project intended to promote understanding and unity, with sails stitched together from silk paintings by local children from diverse backgrounds. Opening on 17 May, this iteration of the project focuses on celebrating the rich diversity in Greece, as well as working on strengthening the relationships between Greek children and refugee children recently arrived in Thessaloniki. Its unique potency emerges through a curated workshop programme with in which these children are brought together to paint silk panels for the sails based on their discussion of diversity and tolerance. 

The 60-foot long, hand-crafted wooden ship will be constructed on the Port of Thessaloniki. Accompanying the raising of the sail will be a concert showcasing the talents of local and international children, taking place at Pier A of the Port of Thessaloniki. The concert has been generously sponsored by David and Susan Rockefeller.

Works by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov will also be on view simultaneously in two exhibitions in Thessaloniki: Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Works on Paper, on view at Donopoulos International Fine Arts, and The Eminent Direction of Thoughts, on view at MOMus-Experimental Center for the Arts, both until 22 June 2023. 

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov were born in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, in the former USSR, in 1933 and 1945 respectively, and live and work in Long Island.  Their pioneering 'total installations' fuse elements of the everyday with those of the conceptual. While their work is deeply rooted in the Soviet social and cultural context in which they came of age, it also engages with universal themes. 

Since its first inception in Siwa, Egypt in 2005, The Ship of Tolerance has been shown in venues across the globe, including the Chicago River (2019); the River Thames near Tate Modern, London (2019), Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome (2017); Kunsthaus Zug, Switzerland (2016); and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2013), as well as at the Havana Biennial (2012); Sharjah Biennial (2011); and Venice Biennale (2007). The Ship of Tolerance was awarded the prestigious Cartier Prize for the Best Art Project of the Year in 2010.