VFR ASSOCIATION AND CIAT SANT’AGATA
__CIAT Sant’Agata — First Edition
Onboard Artistic Residencies in Sicily – Summer 2025
__The first edition of CIAT Sant’Agata — Centre for Art in Transit — launches a series of itinerant artistic residencies aboard the Sant’Agata, a century-old Norwegian ketch, carefully restored in Sicily and transformed into a mobile platform for contemporary creation.Rooted in an experimental and site-specific approach, CIAT offers a floating space for research, production, and collective exchange. It explores how artistic practices unfold through slowness, geographical movement, and embedded storytelling.Residencies will take place in June, July, and August 2025, along the northern coast of Sicily, with stops in Cefalù, Termini Imerese, Tusa, and Palermo, and—depending on the sea conditions—other coastal or island locations.Four distinct residency formats are offered:• Photography (film, digital, experimental)
• Travel sketchbooks & drawing (visual journaling, graphic narratives)
• Music (composition, improvisation, field recording)
• Cinematic and documentary writing (screenwriting, fragmented storytelling, field writing)Each session welcomes 6 to 8 participants, combining slow sailing, onboard creation time, land-based exploration, critical discussions, shared meals, swimming, and reflective observation. The vessel becomes at once a studio, a stage, a shelter, and a viewpoint — a place to drift, to listen, to focus, and to meet.The artworks developed during the residencies will be presented as a temporary onboard installation, and through a nighttime projection onto the mainsail, either at anchor or in port.
A set of online archives will accompany this first edition, featuring narrative documents — photographs, audio recordings, drawings, texts, logbooks, video fragments — as artistic gestures woven from the voyage.CIAT Sant’Agata embraces an art of transit: situated, relational, and attentive to the margins — where the sea becomes both space and memory.
A first attempt, carried by a century-old vessel, a group of artists in motion, and the breath of the Mediterranean.Souhaites-tu que je mette les deux versions (française et anglaise) en page pour un document de présentation PDF ? Ou préfères-tu un format court adapté pour site web ou réseaux sociaux ?
Get in touch to join a workshop or sail with us.
SANT’AGATA
it’s 4000 miles in 2024
14 countries, 25 crew members on board
Sea route of Sant'Agata ex Hausten since 1917-2023Uskedalen - Kvinnherad - Stavanger - Kolbeinsvik - Hamburg - Heligoland - Haugesund - Måløy - Øresund - Bergen - Nordeide - Rostadheimen - Oslofjord - Soon
2024
- Moss - Varberg - Helsingborg - Møn - Cuxhaven - Oostende - Calais - Alderney - Brest -Lorient - Santander - Vigo - Sines - Tarifa - Gibraltar - Al Hoceima - Mellila - Saïdia -Beni Saf - Oran- Arzew - Mostaganem - Sidi Fredj - Azzeffoun - Bejaia - Collo - El Mersa - El Kala.
Be a Crew Member
Being a crew member means participating in the functions of the sailboat at any time in the physical limits and the knowledge. It means being responsible for others and ourselves. It means accepting to live in a community during the voyage. It means coming up with motivation and transforming it into energy.
The crew will need to keep watch. If we are, for example, eight crew members plus me, I will make up three groups where every group will have a mission of eight hours: the first group will rest, the second one will cater and finally third one will steer the boat and care about the proceedings.
Aventure Nature Health Sport
Sailing is not easy! Lowering, hoisting, trimming the sails, holding the helm: so many actions that use the body and increase energy expenditure. Fun dimension in addition! »
It reduces cardiovascular risks. The technical gestures and maneuvers to be performed work all the muscles of the body. Exposure to the marine environment also improves certain atopic pathologies such as asthma. The sail is also beneficial for balance, we will constantly work deep muscles to manage our balance. ». Adventure and travel have an Anti-anxiety dimension. The social character participate to the mental health.
Safety on board
Sant’Agata has all the equipment for an offshore navigation.
Still, a boat remains a complex machine and sailing is an activity with risk factors. Even if often these are little injuries, you need to be careful, vigilant and in good health. There could be malfunctions, mechanical failures and electric problems. It is important to not take risks and ask me before doing an action. In a boat like this every action has consequences.
The Ship
The Sant’Agata is 107 years old today, it is a gaff ketch of 63 feet long able to receive 25 people aboard. Previously the training ship of the maritime school Soon Sjøskole.
Old gaff rig
Navigation on an old gaff rigger is very playful, simple, clear, and physical. There are no complicated things in the handling of the boat and hoisting the sails.
The complicated thing is to make the best out of every allure of the boat, this needs a minimum of experience to understand the direction of the wind under sails.
Saloon
With its 2 meters 40 centimeters headroom and 5 meters large the saloon is very comfortable, on the side there are eight berths and arrangements. The Sant’Agata is an old school boat, so everything is made to be easy to use.
A sailing boat for the northern seas
The Sant’Agata has evolved since his construction in 1917. Cargo boat, charter and finally a school boat, it benefited from many improvements. For example, a double copper shell for the ices. The wheelhouse and the machines room are separate from the living area.
Word from the Captain
Quick guide “Essentials”
We have all life saving equipment aboard, the rest is personal equipment.Here is what I use:- Sleeping bag
- Stuffed waterproof gloves
- Stuffed rainproof shoes
- Wool sweater
- Wool knit cap
- Wool scarf
- Waterproof bag
- Working waterproof overall
- Waterproof vest
- Vaseline (for winter gales on my face)
- LeggingThe general idea is to have 3 categories of clothes :
1. For dry weather
2. For cold and rainy days
3. For cocooning inside, pajama style.
Memorium
A tribute to all those who have given their time, work, and heart to Sant'Agata ex Hausten H12K since its construction in Ølve, Hardanger, Norway in 1917.
Jens Nerhus, carpenter
Frank Søraa
Ole Thalberg
Kjell Berge
Kristian Olav Bringedal
Johannes Sunde
Erik K Hammerhaugi Vikane
MJ Signy
Mandius J Myklebust
Mikkjel Myhre
Sverre Sunde
Svein Fredrik Tande
David McBride
Press
Arnaud Trambouze and his crew are stuck in the ice
The secrets of Santander's natural treasure.
Radio
The goal: Sail to Italy - instead frozen in Varberg.
Merci a tous ceux qui on fait partager notre passion et notre aventure.
© Amici di Sant'Agata 2024. All rights reserved.
Merci
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