Contemporary art has a strange way of appearing just when a city starts to lose its sense of self. It slips through the cracks – between glass towers and back alleys – reminding us that culture isn’t a luxury but a survival instinct. In Bangkok, that reminder takes shape as Ghost 2568: Wish We Were Here, a month-long art festival that doesn’t just exhibit work, it disturbs the air around it.
This month marks the final act of Ghost, the video and performance art series that’s haunted Bangkok since 2018. Curated by Amal Khalaf, Wish We Were Here gathers more than 30 artists whose works speak in fragments, melodies and spectral gestures that refuse to fade.
From October 15-November 15, Ghost spreads across eight venues – an art trail stretching from boxing rings to galleries, temples of reflection to late-night experiments. The first two curators, Christina Li and Korakrit Arunanondchai, return with their own afterlives of ideas, joined by Pongsakorn Yananissorn, who brings back Host, a learning platform that doesn’t teach so much as listen.
This year’s theme feels like a sigh caught mid-song – a hymn to survival in cities that keep swallowing their own stories. Along the Chao Phraya, artists trace what’s been erased: a memory of belonging, a shared language, a body that no longer fits the shape of its past. Ghost isn’t tidy. It’s about what remains when the lights go down and what resists when everything else moves on.
Here’s what to keep an eye on:
- Wish We Were Songs for Ghost
Korakrit Arunanondchai – who started the series back in 2018 – curates a live music programme that hums within Dan Lie’s installation at Bangkok CityCity Gallery. Think of it as a seance disguised as a concert. Performances range from Senyawa and NUH PEACE (October 15) to Regis and Bonaventure (November 2) and finally Gatekeeper with Ashland Mines (November 13). Each night rewrites the air, turning sound into something almost tangible. - Ghost: Bodies Dispossessed
Curated by Christina Li, this chapter asks what happens when a ghost forgets its body. Through video and performance works by Orawan Arunrak, Raqs Media Collective and Koki Tanaka, it moves between Bangkok and Amsterdam – a mirror held up between two cities, both haunted by their own reflections. - Host: 2568
Pongsakorn Yananissorn revives Host as a living classroom. Here, artists and cultural workers share what doesn’t fit in formal talks – the awkward moments, the afterthoughts, the unfinished stories. It’s less about instruction than conversation, a reminder that art often begins where language falters. - Ghost 2568: Wish We Were Here
What makes Ghost magnetic is how it escapes walls. Beyond galleries, it spills into Bangkok’s everyday – where a boxing match becomes an artwork (Paul Pfeiffer’s Match of Legend at Rajadamnern Stadium), where Dan Lie’s Patience takes root in a gallery’s corners, and where Ryan Trecartin’s restless visuals echo those once shown at Prada in Milan and Aoyama. Even Thai fashion label IWANNA BANGKOK joins the haunting with Sexy Arcade.
From the river’s edge to the city’s restless heart, Ghost 2568 feels like a collective exhale – one last gathering before the silence settles.
October 15-November 15. Free admission.