9 May 2026
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100 Tonson, once again, is a proud sponsor of BAB 2026, continuing our long-standing commitment to supporting artists and shaping meaningful dialogues in contemporary art—fostering cross-cultural exchange and championing ambitious, globally resonant practices.
The Spirits of Maritime Crossing 2026
Organised by Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation
9 May – 2 August, 2026
Palazzo Rocca Contarini Corfù, Venice
The Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation presents The Spirits of Maritime Crossing 2026, an international group exhibition curated by Prof. Dr. Apinan Poshyananda, Chief Executive and Artistic Director of Bangkok Art Biennale. Co-hosted with Thai Beverage Public Company Limited (ThaiBev) and One Bangkok, the exhibition will be held from 9 May to 2 August 2026 within the historic rooms of Palazzo Rocca Contarini Corfù.
Bringing together 20 artists from Southeast Asia, as well as Ireland, Serbia and beyond, the exhibition explores themes of identity, displacement, diaspora, memory and spiritual resilience in a world shaped by migration and global transformation. Participating artists include Marina Abramović, Pichet Klunchun, Martha Atienza, Ong Kian Peng, Nadiah Bamadhaj, Le Hien Minh, Wasinburee Supanichvoraparch, Sornchai Phongsa and many others.
Spanning performance, film, installation, painting and sculpture, the exhibition reflects on how artists transform shared experiences of loss, rupture and transition into poetic forms of connection. Highlights include new collaborative works and a short film directed by Prof. Dr. Apinan Poshyananda and created especially for Venice.
At the heart of the presentation is Marina Abramović’s performance Sea Punishing, staged with hundreds of participants whipping the sea in reference to King Xerxes’s act of punishing destructive waters—a poignant remembrance of the Andaman Sea tsunami. The new film The Spirits of Maritime Crossing II follows Abramović alongside Pichet Klunchun, Mutmee Pimdao Panichsamai, Aleksandar Timotić and Amanda Coogan on a spiritual journey between Venice and Bangkok, tracing themes of suffering, solitude and transcendence.
The exhibition navigates through personal mythologies and collective memories: Martha Atienza’s underwater film merges Catholic rituals with maritime processions; Ong Kian Peng envisions Singapore submerged by rising currents through disruptive AI imagery; Tcheu Siong stitches Hmong cosmologies into monumental embroideries; and Sornchai Phongsa’s paintings confront Mon ancestral rituals and queer identity. Across the galleries, artists reflect on migration, spirituality, environmental fragility and cultural inheritance: from Nadiah Bamadhaj’s reinterpretation of Calon Arang to Le Hien Minh’s paper sculptures of post-war memories, Soe Yu Nwe’s surreal ceramics of hybrid creatures, and Parada Wiratsawee’s haunting sculptures of sea life in distress.
Themes of ecological collapse and ancestral resilience reverberate through Ruangsak Anuwatwimon’s fragile floating soil diorama and Wasinburee Supanichvoraparch’s ceramic residues of ancient trade routes, while Torlarp Larpjaroen’s Spiritual Spaceships evoke nostalgic vessels arriving in Venice. Arahmaiani’s participatory Flag Project and Yasmin Jaidin’s soil-based works engage communities and universities in sustainable artmaking.
Responding to the Biennale’s theme, Amanda Coogan performs Ode to Joy with Thai deaf students on the Chao Phraya River, offering a breath of hope. Throughout the vernissage and opening weeks, live performances by artists intertwining Italian-Slav opera, Irish ballads, Thai mask dance and spiritual chants form a shared vocabulary of minor tones and minor care.
Through layered narratives of faith, race, migration and neo-colonial realities, The Spirits of Maritime Crossing 2026 reflects on a world in flux, offering moments of quiet resistance and poetic resilience.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: The Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation
