Bangkok Kunsthalle Launches Open Ground as Space for Experimental Creative Practices with ‘Mooring’ Curated by Thapong Srisai as Inaugural Exhibition
“What happens when stories travel across the boundaries of language, culture, and personal experience? And when they are encountered by people whose lives and memories differ from those who first told them, where does the current of these stories carry them next?”
This question sparks ‘Mooring,’ the first exhibition to be held under ‘Open Ground’or Bangkok Kunsthalle’s initiative to sponsor the creative practices of emerging artists and curators. Issuing the first call for applications in November 2025, Open Group plans to support talents aged 23 to 35 every year by offering the space for bold artistic programs that explore new possibilities across various disciplines as well as for the dialogue among artists, curators and the public, a key driver for Thailand’s contemporary-art scene.
Curated by Thaphong Srisai, ‘Mooring’ invites viewers to explore the journey of stories traversing language, culture, and personal experience. As stories move from one context to another, their meanings inevitably shift in line with the teller, the listener, and the conditions of each interpretation.
The exhibition’s title, Mooring, refers to the act of ‘anchoring’ – a metaphor for the search for a standing point amid the constant flow of movement, reinterpretation, and transformation of stories in today’s world—where history, memory, and identity are continually reimagined through exchanges between people and cultures.
The exhibition brings together works by Arisa Purkpong, Kay Zhang, Tanat Teeradakorn, and Vanessa Bosch. Each artist has a different approach to storytelling, from personal memories intertwined with family histories of migration and journeys across continents, traces of sound from past events, and an inner feeling and spirituality that engage with something beyond perception. Together, these works invite audiences to think and feel through sound, moving images, and installation.
Rather than treating history, memory, or belief as fixed and unchanging, ‘Mooring’ invites viewers to consider how they have shifted through storytelling, listening, and reinterpretation. A story may outlive the person who tells it, and with each retelling from one person to another, from one place to the next, it continues to change.
‘Mooring’ is held through the support of the Office of Contemporary Art Norway, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Ghost Foundation, OPENFIELD, and Bangkok Kunsthalle. Running from 24 July to 29 September 2026 at Bangkok Kunsthalle, it is open from Wednesday to Sunday, between 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM (closed on Mondays and Tuesdays). Admission is free.
