Rain pounded Venice during the Biennale’s opening week, pooling across streets and swallowing pavements—water no longer a backdrop but a protagonist. Into this charged setting comes “The Spirits of Maritime Crossing 2026,” the second iteration of the collateral event staged by the Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation. Building on its 2024 debut, the exhibition recasts the ocean as a vessel for memory, spirituality, and exchange where passage unfolds not only between shores but between worlds.
This expanded notion of crossing finds expression in The Spirits of Maritime Crossing II (2025), a film written and directed by curator Apinan Poshyananda. Functioning as a thematic overture, it follows wandering spirits portrayed by Marina Abramović, Amanda Coogan, Pichet Klunchun, and Mutmee Pimdao Panichsamai as they move between Venice and Bangkok, caught in cycles of attachment, suffering, and rebirth.
