19.10.204 – 11.01.2026
Let’s hoist our sails and venture out into the unknown!
The new exhibition at the Seaplane Harbour transports visitors back to an era when the great powers of Europe were in a race to discover the last ‘blind spots’ on the planet.
With copious illustrations, instruments, and other items, the exhibition tells the story of the great expansion of the geographical view of the world that took place from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, spurred on by the rapid development of cartography and the natural sciences.
Explorers from the territory of modern Estonia were important actors at that time. The most important result of their contribution was an atlas of thePacific Ocean by Adam Johann von Krusenstern, which was one of the most important works of its kind in all of Europe when it appeared.
In addition to dealing with navigating in and charting the Pacific Ocean, the exhibition also takes a look at the everyday life of such mammoth voyages. What had to be taken into account for journeys lasting months and years? What jobs needed to be done, which roles had to be filled? And most importantly – how did they maintain their physical and mental health?
Fortunately, visitors of the exhibition can experience the more exciting parts of the life of a ship’s crew. A ship’s mast stands tall at the exhibition, along which you can climb up beneath the domes of the hangars of the Seaplane Harbour. The most daring can also put themselves to the test by free jumping from the top of the mast!
The expedition continued even after the end of the sea voyage, because all of the explorers published their travel journals – the leading scientific works of the era. The exhibition takes the visitor to Krusenstern’s workshop, presenting his research and highlighting the importance of the international network in the work of a cartographer.
However, the legacy of those voyages of discovery, which were worthwhile in terms of research, is in many ways problematic today, and the sensitive issues of colonialism and imperialism are also analysed in the exhibition.
This grand exhibition at the Seaplane Harbour includes historical artefacts on display from memory institutions in France, the Netherlands, England, Finland, Switzerland, and Estonia.