Ten unique containers make “Trip around the World”

Over the next two years, ten unique containers will snake their way through Maersk Line's global shipping network as part of the "Trip around the World" art project.

Maersk Line is the largest container shipping company in the world with a fleet comprising more than 500 vessels and 1,900,000 TEU (Twenty foot Equivalent Unit - a container 20 feet long).

The containers have already been spotted in such far-flung locations as Singapore, Mombasa, Lagos and Algeciras, and they'll be adding a little colour to Maersk Line's container network for the next two years.

Ten individualised containers
"Trip around the World" is an art container project comprising ten, twenty-foot refrigerated containers (reefers) supplied by Maersk Line. Each container has been given its own individual makeover by child artists from various schools, charities and youth organisations in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

"It really is a unique and extraordinary project," says Lisette Ketting, Communication Coordinator for Maersk Line in Rotterdam, a member of the Commercial Planning team who sponsored the event as part of ‘Year of the Youth'.

‘Year of the Youth' is an initiative run by the city of Rotterdam to showcase its youth-related cultural, social, political and economic life and development.

A genuine feel-good project
The painting itself took place during World Port Days, between 5-6 September in 2009. Ketting adds that her team received nothing but positive feedback from all the participants and general public, calling it a "genuine feel-good project."

All the colourful containers had, by the end of September, departed Rotterdam on the first legs of their round-the-world journeys.