The Spirits of Maritime Crossing, 2026 explores strangeness, melancholy, and solace in relation to identity, diaspora, displacements, and human migration. Twenty artists from Southeast Asia, Serbia, and Ireland create their own interpretations of Minor Keys in performance, film, music, ceramics, installation, painting, and sculpture.
Sea Punishing performed by Marina Abramović (Serbia/USA) with hundreds of assistants whipping the sea, inspired by King Xerxes punishing the destructive ocean. Abramović’s performance was in remembrance of the tsunami that destroyed thousands of lives in the Andaman Seas. In the film The Spirits of Maritime Crossing (Part 2) features Marina Abramović, Pichet Klunchun (Thailand), Pimdao Panichsamai (Thailand), Aleksandar Timotic (Serbia) and Amanda Coogan (Ireland) in a spiritual journey of suffering and solitude in Venice and Bangkok. Underwater film by Martha Atienza (Philippines) combines Catholic faith and local rituals in a quiet, minor-key, slow-motion maritime procession. Ong Kian Peng (Singapore) presents disruptive AI scenes of calamity as Singapore is slowly engulfed under maritime currents. Tcheu Siong (Lao PDR), a self-taught embroidery artist, depicts the Hmong spiritual world through oral histories and dreams. Her large-scale stitching are inspired by fertility, good health, and ancestral spirits. For Sornchai Phongsa (Thailand), whose paintings are inspired by Mon ancestral worship, relates Mon ghosts and rituals where heredity is passed down to the eldest son. Phongsa’s homosexuality is a sensitive issue in Mon patriarchy. Nadiah Bamadhaj (Malaysia) interprets Calon Arang, the witch of Eastern Java, as a wise elder frustrated in a male-dominated society. Samboleap Tol (Cambodia) explores her diasporic experience as a migrant. Her use of sound, script, and moving installation relates to Mount Meru and the Indianization of Southeast Asia. Le Hien Minh (Vietnam) reflects her experience in post-war Vietnam through local handmade paper sculptures that are both contemplative and provocative. Her experience as a female immigrant in America is surreal and macabre. Soe Yu Nwe (Myanmar), ethnic Chinese from Shan State, creates ceramics intertwining human parts, vegetation, and serpentine forms. Macabre and surreal, the hybridized creatures reflect layers of alienation and estrangement. Parada Wiratsawee (Thailand) creates morbid sculptures of spiritual mourning—sea creatures under distress and alteration from chemical pollution. Inspired by the fish market where his mother works, Wiratsawee experienced the daily trauma of dying fish washed from the sea. Swannie Dean (Myanmar) is dressed as a dying fish on the shore of the Irrawaddy. She slowly tears her carcass to reveal her true self under distress. Due to human intervention and a rapidly changing climate, the Mekong River's ecosystem is collapsing, posing a significant threat to the lives and traditions of local communities. Ruangsak Anuwatwimon (Thailand) traces this loss through a floating soil diorama that is fragile and poetic. Handmade clay and ceramics by Wasinburee Supanichvoraparch (Thailand) evoke ancient trade routes, cultural flows, and chinoiserie markets. Like residues of broken shards from sunken ships washed up from the sea, they are reminders of merchants, traders, and foreigners from afar. Spiritual Spaceships by Torlarp Larpjaroen (Thailand) are imaginary vessels that bring souls from exotic lands to the city of Venice. Like futuristic spaceships in a time warp, they are full of nostalgia and hope. Arahmaiani Feisal’s (Indonesia) Flag Projects, community based art collaboration carried out in Asia, Europe and America. Collective creativity and sustainable art initiate an open art system and democratic art with subjects of resistance, wisdom and happiness. Yasmin Jaidin (Brunei) experiments with physical states of soil and ecology as part of her research on sustainability. Both Ong Kian Peng and Wasinburee Supanichvoraparch will work collaboratively with Ca’ Foscari University in Venice on art and sustainability to make installations in the exhibition.
In response to Minor Keys, Amanda Coogan‘s fantastical performance of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy with dozens of Thai deaf students, performance at a giant white stupa on Chao Phraya River to express hope and a breath of fresh air. The time has come to resuscitate and make joy. During vernissage and first weeks of La Biennale, Amanda Coogan, Pichet Klunchun, Pimdao Panichsamai, Arahmaiani Feisal, Swannie Dean, and Aleksandar Timotic collaborate to create sounds, rhythm and echoes of Minor Tones. From Italian-Slav opera, Irish ballads to Thai mask dance, Hindu-Muslim chanting open new possibilities of minor tone and minor care. Long durational performances will set the tone of The Spirits of Maritime Crossing in Minor Keys. The exhibition will address layers of issues including faiths, races, hegemony, migration and neo-colonization in the suffering world we live in.
Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB), set in the capital city of Thailand, was founded in 2017 with the mission to transform the bustling city of Bangkok into Southeast Asia’s leading contemporary art destination. Taking over public spaces around the city including temples and heritage sites over the course of four months, the biennale highlights the city’s charm by bridging Rattanakosin cultural heritage with Bangkok urbanism.
As a freely accessible platform, the past three biennales attracted over three and a half million visitors. More than 300 artists from Asia, Europe, America, Oceania and Africa participated. During the pandemic, the biennale also launched BAB Virtual Venue, an online platform which has garnered over 2.3 million viewers from around the world each year. The theme of each biennale, Beyond Bliss, Escape Routes, CHAOS : CALM, evolved around the events of the world, and calls attention to relevant socio-political and environmental issues in a glocal scale, and seek to question through art, what it means to be contemporary.
Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation aims to foster cross-cultural exchange between artists and creative practitioners from around the world. Its diverse programming creates more opportunities for artists, especially from the Global South, to hone their practices and exhibit and produce new works, thus gaining more exposure in the international art scene. As a platform, Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation supports scholarly and open discussions in contemporary art and issues beyond, and focuses on making art education inclusive and accessible, not only to the art aficionados and art tourists, but to younger local audiences in Thailand, and the public at large. Acting as a bridge between the art sector and other disciplines, and forming alliances with both the public and private sectors including government organizations, embassies, cultural institutions, schools, and various businesses, the Foundation’s mission is also to support the development of the art ecosystem and the infrastructure of the art industry in Southeast Asia.
Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation (BABF) was founded under the patronage of Thapana Sirivadhanabhakdi, CEO and President of ThaiBev Co., Ltd, a beverage company, together with the visions of Nitikorn Kravixien, Director of Arts and Culture, ThaiBev Co., Ltd, and former vice president of the Royal Photographic Society of Thailand (RPST), and Prof. Dr. Apinan Poshyananda, pioneering curator of Asian art and former Permanent Secretary and Acting Minister of the Ministry of Culture, Thailand.
About Thai Beverage Public Company Limited (ThaiBev)
Thai Beverage Public Company Limited (‘ThaiBev,’ and together with its subsidiaries, the ‘Group’) is a leading beverage company in Southeast Asia and the largest in Thailand. The Group's vision is to be a world-class beverage company embodying commercial excellence, continuous product development and premiumization, as well as professionalism. ThaiBev's business consists of four segments – spirits, beer, non-alcoholic beverages, and food. ThaiBev has been the major supporter of Bangkok Art Biennale since 2018, and the company’s commitment to artistic innovation has transformed the Bangkok Art Biennale into a prominent platform for Thai and international artists and creators.
Professor Dr. Apinan Poshyananda was born in 1956. He received his Bachelor and Master Degree in Fine Arts from Edinburgh University and Ph.D. in History of Art from Cornell University. As an artist, he won 3 medals at the National Exhibition of Art, Thailand. Poshyananda is the author of several books on Thai and Asian art. He became professor at the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. Poshyananda served as Director-General, Office of Contemporary Art and Culture, Director-General of Cultural Promotion Department and, the Permanent Secretary and Acting Minister, Ministry of Culture, Thailand when he was to commission and curate the first Thai Pavilion at 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. He has curated and directed international art exhibitions in Asia, Europe, USA and Australia including Contemporary Art from Asia: Traditions/Tensions (1996, Grey Art Gallery, Queen Museum of Art, and Asia Society Galleries, New York); Traces of Siamese Smile: Art + Faith + Politic + Love (2008, the inaugural exhibition of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC)); Thailand Eye (2015, Saatchi Gallery, London and BACC). He is a committee member of the Asian Cultural Council, New York; Asian Art Council, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Board of National Gallery, Singapore; and Advisor to President and CEO, Thai Beverage Plc. He was conferred Knight Grand Cordon (Special Class) of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant, Thailand; Knight First Class of Royal Order of the Polar Star, Sweden; Knight, Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity, Italy and Officer of the French Arts and Letters Order, France.
