“SEA OCEAN” PROJECT
HAMBURG, 14-18.05.2008

The project “Sea Ocean” created in the August of 2007 in Odessa, later presented at the Art-Kiev Festival and recognized by experts as the best Ukrainian project of the year, has flooded with its high emotions the night port of the city of Hamburg like a rolling wave.   

The artists S. Savchenko, R. Romanishin, E. Belsky, P. Lebedinets and I, T. Binovska, landed at the Hamburg airport on May 14, 2008.

We were invited by the HPK Company. The HPK Ukraine Container Terminal is a subsidiary of the Hamburg terminal. The administration of the Odessa affiliate has always and with great pleasure supported all the projects presented by the Maritime Art Gallery of the Odessa port.

I would like to thank for this the Director General Dirk Battermann as well as his assistant the wonderful Svetlana Yarovaya.

Our trip to Germany was possible thanks to Svetlana.

There we had an opportunity to get acquainted and to very closely communicate with the General Manager of the “НРК HAMBURG” Klaus Schmecker. Mr Schmecker did not only perfectly organize our visit  but we can say that he also lived the entire experience of our four-days stay with us. And the incredible beauty of the port deserves to be praised.

A bit of history.
In April, the port of Hamburg celebrated its 819th anniversary (the city itself is 1200 years old). It is situated on the famous Elbe River and is a real jewel of the city. The depth of this powerful river is awesome; some of the ships that pass there are bigger than anything we have ever seen in our sea port. The ancient port structures and almost fantastic modern terminals are the pride and joy of the city.

On the first day of our visit we were invited to stay in a ship-museum hotel “Captain San Diego”. As Mr Schmecker told us, the ship was to be turned into scrap metal but then it was decided to transform it into a museum which is now very popular among the inhabitants and visitors of Hamburg. It was very interesting to wake up early in the morning and see motion and activity, the never-ending work process of the huge port.

The following day we visited the shop where we were supposed to buy materials for our work. To tell the truth, once inside that shop, we wanted to ask for political asylum. Everybody can easily imagine what materials mean for an artist – they are more precious than all the joys of this world. We were like children who suddenly find themselves in a toy store. At last, after choosing all the things that we needed, we went back to the port. We decided to work directly onboard the ship. We moved to another hotel called MARITIME, which is curious because the full name of our gallery in English is MARITIME ART GALLERY. I do believe that all events are predetermined and the above-mentioned fact confirmed my conviction.

The process started at night – this completely extraordinary feeling of creative ecstasy combined with the synergy of five entirely different artists. The profoundness of this feeling cannot be compared with any other emotion. Although we were onboard the ship that was motionless and chained to the shore, the pictures were floating by before our eyes and it seemed that we were moving on the waves of our favorite project “Sea Ocean”. The things we saw remained in our hearts forever and were immediately reproduced on the canvases.

30 works were created during those three unforgettable nights. The people of Hamburg will be able to admire them in June at the show scheduled to take place in the exhibition center of the port administration.  

And now we are going to continue the project in the port of Cape Town and we have already begun negotiations with the city port authorities. 

Tatiana Binovska
Maritime Art Gallery
Creator and Curator of the “Sea Ocean” Project