An artists’ residency as a journey in the unlimited, 23 days at sea. Place for inspiration and creation, the challenge of a venue in motion. Unlike traditional residencies offering artists accommodation at a stationary site, Access Gallery in Canada challenges this concept – stated as too traditional and outdated – and proposes an extraordinary opportunity for artists: it offers them passage aboard a cargo ship that sails from Vancouver in Canada to Shanghai, China. Crossing this part of sea, the Pacific Ocean, takes circa twenty-three days. Hence the name of the residency Twenty-Three Days at Sea. During this period of time the artist is considered to be ‘in residence’ aboard the vessel with the aim of producing a new body of work. The inaugural residents will be at sea in August and September of this year. This unique opportunity proposes artists profound generative space and time for the creation and production of new ideas and works.

Evidently visual artists or writers have been aboard ships before to get inspiration, to escape the ordinary and banal life, to generate ideas, and perhaps to consider and to think about the implications of this mode of travel. Amongst the myriad of residencies available across the globe, these 23 days at sea distincts itself from the bunch.

Not made for people with seasickness, the claustrofobic and quiet space of the cargo cabin provides for sea heroes and junks with a profound passion for the arts an unconventional studio. The voyage itself is a challenge, evoking experiences and ideas on notions of time and space. A venue in motion, the engine for inspiration and creation or a poetic and melancholic refuge for lonely wolves?