Ghost Ship and the Power of Place: Turning Water into Memory
10 min read
Mar 25, 2025
In an era of remote work and reduced travel costs, cities compete on not only infrastructure, but also identity and vibrancy, making the role of public art in placemaking more than critical. At its best, placemaking weaves together culture, history, and innovation into a shared experience that fosters civic pride, attracts tourism, and reinvigorates underutilized spaces.
We are excited to have the Ghost Ship featured by the Bright Brothers Strategy Group, a consultancy that works with cities, districts and DMOs on strategic planning, marketing, and placemaking. Created in 2014 by Mihai Baba and Daiana Folea of Biangle Studio, Ghost Ship is a luminous apparition—a sailing vessel that appears to float above the water, shimmering in the night air. First exhibited at the Amsterdam Light Festival, the installation has since traveled globally, mesmerizing audiences in Berlin, Liverpool, Singapore, Philadelphia, and beyond.
But Ghost Ship is more than a technical feat; it is a case study in how large-scale immersive installations can transform a space and catalyze a deeper sense of place.
What distinguishes Ghost Ship is not just its visual allure, but its capacity to serve as a tool for community storytelling and engagement. Measuring nearly 20 meters high and created from intersecting light planes projected onto pressurized water spray, it harnesses cutting-edge technology to evoke centuries-old maritime legacies. Its very presence over a body of water invites reflection—on trade, migration, exploration, and the deep cultural relationships that communities have with their waterfronts.
This is what makes Ghost Ship ideal for public-facing activations: it is art that resonates with place. Maritime museums, riverfront districts, and urban renewal projects have all used the installation not merely as an attraction, but as a vehicle for identity-building. In Philadelphia, for instance, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission deployed Ghost Ship as part of its Waterfront Arts Program. The result was more than earned media and social buzz—it was a reawakening of civic memory through a hauntingly beautiful spectacle.
Seth Kaplan, in Fragile Neighborhoods, argues that repairing the fabric of American society requires reinvesting in the physical and social infrastructure of local communities, strengthening the bonds of trust, identity, and belonging that make neighborhoods resilient. Ghost Ship contributes to this kind of repair by creating moments of shared wonder that bring people together across lines of age, background, and belief. These installations don’t just beautify a place—they activate it, turning anonymous public spaces into sites of collective memory and emotional connection. In this way, experiential art can serve as soft infrastructure for social cohesion, aligning closely with Kaplan’s vision for restoring the human scale to civic life.
Cities and organizations can offset the cost of public arts investments with a mix of private sponsorships, in-kind contributions, and tourism-generated revenue. More importantly, installations of this kind offer more than short-term returns. They generate reputational capital, contributing to a district’s narrative as a destination for creativity, innovation, and culture.
We are excited about the progress to date with the Ghost Ship, the inclusion of it by Bright Brothers Strategy Group, and look forward to the communities that the installation will be able to touch in the years ahead, helping build community and shared experiences.
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In an era of remote work and reduced travel costs, cities compete on not only infrastructure, but also identity and vibrancy, making the role of public art in placemaking more than critical. At its best, placemaking weaves together culture, history, and innovation into a shared experience that fosters civic pride, attracts tourism, and reinvigorates underutilized spaces.
We are excited to have the Ghost Ship featured by the Bright Brothers Strategy Group, a consultancy that works with cities, districts and DMOs on strategic planning, marketing, and placemaking. Created in 2014 by Mihai Baba and Daiana Folea of Biangle Studio, Ghost Ship is a luminous apparition—a sailing vessel that appears to float above the water, shimmering in the night air. First exhibited at the Amsterdam Light Festival, the installation has since traveled globally, mesmerizing audiences in Berlin, Liverpool, Singapore, Philadelphia, and beyond.
But Ghost Ship is more than a technical feat; it is a case study in how large-scale immersive installations can transform a space and catalyze a deeper sense of place.
What distinguishes Ghost Ship is not just its visual allure, but its capacity to serve as a tool for community storytelling and engagement. Measuring nearly 20 meters high and created from intersecting light planes projected onto pressurized water spray, it harnesses cutting-edge technology to evoke centuries-old maritime legacies. Its very presence over a body of water invites reflection—on trade, migration, exploration, and the deep cultural relationships that communities have with their waterfronts.
This is what makes Ghost Ship ideal for public-facing activations: it is art that resonates with place. Maritime museums, riverfront districts, and urban renewal projects have all used the installation not merely as an attraction, but as a vehicle for identity-building. In Philadelphia, for instance, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission deployed Ghost Ship as part of its Waterfront Arts Program. The result was more than earned media and social buzz—it was a reawakening of civic memory through a hauntingly beautiful spectacle.
Seth Kaplan, in Fragile Neighborhoods, argues that repairing the fabric of American society requires reinvesting in the physical and social infrastructure of local communities, strengthening the bonds of trust, identity, and belonging that make neighborhoods resilient. Ghost Ship contributes to this kind of repair by creating moments of shared wonder that bring people together across lines of age, background, and belief. These installations don’t just beautify a place—they activate it, turning anonymous public spaces into sites of collective memory and emotional connection. In this way, experiential art can serve as soft infrastructure for social cohesion, aligning closely with Kaplan’s vision for restoring the human scale to civic life.
Cities and organizations can offset the cost of public arts investments with a mix of private sponsorships, in-kind contributions, and tourism-generated revenue. More importantly, installations of this kind offer more than short-term returns. They generate reputational capital, contributing to a district’s narrative as a destination for creativity, innovation, and culture.
We are excited about the progress to date with the Ghost Ship, the inclusion of it by Bright Brothers Strategy Group, and look forward to the communities that the installation will be able to touch in the years ahead, helping build community and shared experiences.
Latest news and events
10 min read
Nov 20, 2025
Living Opera is distributed by Universal Music Group
Nov 20, 2025
10 min read
A new milestone: Living Opera is distributed by Universal Music Group.
CM Culture Management is proud to mark this milestone for our client Living Opera. With this development, Living Opera continues to grow as a creative studio that brings classical performance into conversation with contemporary sound and creative storytelling.
Living Opera’s Creative Direction
Living Opera develops original recordings, multimedia projects, and live performances that blend classical technique with modern artistic approaches. The studio focuses on work that connects music, narrative, and culture for audiences across generations.
New Music on the Horizon
The first single arrives on November 28 and comes from Living Opera’s upcoming project Radio Days. This release introduces a new series of recordings that explore the musical landscape of the early American broadcasting era ahead of the US250 celebrations in 2026.
About CM Culture Management
CM Culture Management represents artists and creative ventures that bridge classical performance and contemporary media. Through strategic development, production support, and brand building, CM Culture helps artists expand their reach while maintaining their full artistic vision. We are thrilled for Living Opera and can't wait to see what this new chapter holds!
10 min read
Sep 18, 2025
Living Opera Launches a New Chapter: A Digital Home for a Global Vision
Living Opera Launches a New Chapter: A Digital Home for a Global Vision
Sep 18, 2025
10 min read
Living Opera Launches a New Chapter: A Digital Home for a Global Vision
Living Opera unveils its new website and Foundation, marking a new phase in its mission to make the impossible possible. The platform now unites its work across music, education, research, and philanthropy in one place, celebrating five years of growth and looking ahead to the next chapter of artist-led innovation. Founded by soprano Soula Parassidis and tenor Norman Reinhardt in 2019, Living Opera began as a conversation about how to create a new internal culture for classical musc. That conversation has become a movement spanning stages, studios, and classrooms worldwide.
A Foundation for the Future
The newly formed Living Opera Foundation transforms a vision into structure. It provides a home for initiatives that unite creativity and purpose, including the Kristin Okerlund Masterclass Series, which mentors young artists and honors one of Living Opera’s most cherished collaborators, the Eric Wilson Prize, recognizing artistic integrity and leadership, and the Circles network, a model for sustainable, community-driven performance. Each initiative is guided by the same principles that have defined Living Opera from the beginning: service, purpose, story, and excellence.
Music, Media, and Meaning
Living Opera Media expands the organization’s storytelling through recordings, podcasts, and film. Upcoming projects include Radio Days: The Golden Age of American Song, celebrating the music that once brought families together across the airwaves, Muse of the Golden Throne, a revival of rare art songs inspired by the poetry of Sappho, and Behind the Curtain, a podcast revealing the real lives of artists who make today’s culture possible. Each project shares one goal: to make art accessible without losing its depth and to show that classical music continues to speak with power and relevance.
Building the Culture They Want to Live In
As Living Opera enters its next chapter, the message remains constant: beauty endures when it is built with purpose. The new website invites audiences, partners, and patrons to explore how the organization blends tradition with innovation, art with data, and performance with community. What began as two artists seeking meaning in their craft has become a global network proving that excellence, generosity, and sustainability can coexist.
Visit www.livingopera.org to learn more.
10 min read
Jun 28, 2025
Norman Reinhardt featured on Medici TV
Norman Reinhardt featured on Medici TV in Strauss’s Capriccio from Teatro Real Madrid in a landmark staging by Christof Loy.
Jun 28, 2025
10 min read
Norman Reinhardt Featured on Medici TV in Strauss’s Capriccio from Teatro Real Madrid
A Sophisticated Turn in a Philosophical Comedy of Love and Art
Tonight, American tenor Norman Reinhardt appears in one of Richard Strauss’s most elegant and conceptually rich operas—Capriccio—streaming on Medici TV in a landmark production from Teatro Real Madrid. Directed by Christof Loy and conducted by Asher Fisch, this staging brings renewed clarity to Strauss’s final opera, a work that trades spectacle for subtlety and stakes for satire.
A Role Rooted in Artistry, Not Display
Reinhardt sings the role of Flamand, a composer locked in a genteel battle of wits and aesthetics with poet Olivier (Andrè Schuen), both vying for the affection of the Countess Madeleine. Though Capriccio may lack the overt drama of Strauss’s earlier works like Salome or Elektra, it demands considerable finesse from its performers—both vocally and dramatically. As Flamand, Reinhardt delivers Strauss’s conversational lyricism with clarity and conviction, shaping musical phrases that are at once tender and intellectually alive.
The role places him in the center of an opera that is less a story than a dialogue—between characters, and between art forms. Flamand’s music, particularly his setting of Olivier’s sonnet, becomes a vehicle for exploring whether music or poetry more fully captures the essence of human feeling.
Capriccio: Music, Words, and the Artist’s Dilemma
Premiered in 1942, Capriccio is a metatheatrical opera that stages an 18th-century debate about artistic primacy: should opera privilege words or music? But beneath the polished surface of this “conversation piece,” as Strauss and librettist Clemens Krauss described it, lies a meditation on artistic responsibility, the nature of creation, and the impossibility of separating beauty from subjectivity.
Set in a château outside Paris during the Enlightenment, the opera’s refined setting mirrors its refined concerns. Under Loy’s direction, the production emphasizes the stylized, almost mannerist qualities of the piece, while allowing moments of genuine feeling to emerge—particularly in the complex emotional landscape surrounding the Countess’s choice (or refusal to choose) between her two suitors.
A Career Defined by Range and Intelligence
For Reinhardt, this role continues a pattern of high-caliber engagements that emphasize his versatility. Known for his performances in Mozart, Strauss, and 20th-century repertoire, Reinhardt brings an unusually clear diction and thoughtful phrasing to roles that often require more than vocal power. As Flamand, he strikes the balance between artistic passion and courtly restraint—a challenge not only of singing but of characterization.
A Global Stage for a Chamber Opera
With Teatro Real’s production reaching audiences worldwide via Medici TV, this Capriccio offers viewers a rare opportunity to encounter Strauss’s most intimate opera in a richly realized staging. It also places Reinhardt before an international audience in a role that demands—and rewards—artistic nuance.
