A CIVIC reception to launch the Ship to Shore exhibition at Southampton's Sea City Museum, on Thursday, will make up part of the celebrations to mark Southampton’s 50th year as a city.

Ship to Shore explores the different ways that artists have engaged with seas and oceans.

The exhibition is an intriguing visual feast of paintings, films, photography and prints alongside archival objects evoking the disorientating vastness of oceans, the romance of sea travel and ship-to-shore communications.

Ship to Shore runs from today until May 4.