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 maritime crossing 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. The film The Spirits of Maritime Crossing II features Marina Abramović, Pichet Klunchun (Thailand), Mutmee Pimdao Panichsamai (Thailand), Aleksandar Timotić (Serbia/Germany) and Amanda Coogan (Ireland) in a spiritual journey of suffering and solitude in Venice and Bangkok.